There are two ways, 'tis said, by which to get into "society"--either by
flattering or shocking it. But though the writer had the honeyed tongue
of the anteater, this is no time to coddle and soothe you with some
linseed-poultice sort of caressing lullaby. It's New Year's and I am
deliberately setting out to fire up your "dander." Of course, you may be
able to prove an alibi, but, otherwise, if these few plodding lines
succeed in making you really boiling, red-hot "mad"--(not just angry,
you understand)--that will be the best proof that you're still
conscious--and there's hope for you. We shudder when we read of "so and
so" being picked up unconscious, but I could pick up numbers of people
in that pitiable predicament any day--people who somehow got into the
business world, strange to say.
You stand at the outset of a New Year. Scientists think there have been
living beings on this old planet for 500,000 of those time-measures we
call years--but there is _only one_ you can be sure of--that's _this_
year. It's a wonder you didn't think of that without being told! Glance
back over the old year's glimmering trail now fading into whatever such
things fade into. It is strewed with regrets and wasted opportunities
that slipped through your careless fingers! Aren't you ashamed?
What's the matter with you anyway? Don't you care much? Aren't you
interested in the big proposition called "life", more than just enough
to watch the procession of progressive mortals passing? You'll never
keep up with them if you don't pad right along! Wouldn't you like to
strike out for a real goal, eh? You have the stuff in you if you'd just
shake yourself a little to rouse your rusting gifts. Don't turn over the
key to the bailiff just because you weren't born under a favorable sign
in the zodiac. Even if your teacup doesn't read right--pshaw! you
wouldn't let a thing like that spoil your future! Never mind if the
bumps on your head are in the wrong place; jump into the scuffle and
you'll receive any other bumps you need before you're through. A chap is
said to have advertised his brains for sale the other day--"good as
new--never been used." He never served in The Hudson's Bay, that fellow.
No, sir!
* * * * *
The very air is surcharged with pleas to you to launch out and
distinguish yourself. Self advancement is the theme of the age. No one
can do as much for you as you can do for yourself. You're a regular
"powerhouse" of possibilities if you have enough gumption to utilize
them. You remember you turned down a smashing good chance to get ahead,
when, for the sake of a few paltry frivolities, you sacrificed that
special study course which you could have mastered in 1920. You know
better than that. You saunter along through life as if you had a
thousand years to put in here. Train the microscope on your freckled
career and set about to remedy things. Come now, get hold of yourself!
It's all beginning over again--New Year--new page--new everything!
Tackle something that's so much bigger than you that it scares you!
That's the way to grow accustomed to accomplishing big things. This is
_your_ year! How do you know that you're going to have another as good?
Make this your motto--pin it to your New Year's resolutions--"This is
_My_ Year!"--and in sooth it _will_ be your year!
Miss McCheyne's name was inadvertently omitted from the formerly
published list of names of those completing ten years' service.
Since the change in markets Miss Winslow, our postmistress-in-general,
is worried for fear someone is going to tear in one of these days and
ask what the new replacement price is on two cent postage stamps.
Someone turns in an unsigned report about the prevalence of "sparklers"
getting hard on the eyes around the bureau of adjustment.