• Author: Knapp, Annie Miller
• Editor: B-7413
• Newspaper: The Umpire volume 5
• Page Number:
• Date: 9 16 1916
• Tags:
• advice

TURN EVERYTHING TO ADVANTAGE

There is scarcely a day in our lives when we do not meet with a rebuff of some kind some- where—when we are not suddenly called to take measure of ourselves and our social relation.

Nine times out of ten, if we will impartially study the rebuffs that come to us, we will find that we have been in some degree transgressors ourselves.

We must learn to be philosophical in all that comes to us, to learn to turn everything to our advancement.

We must learn that we make better prog- ress when some one is after us. We are more alert and apprehensive then.

A slap on the shoulder is a good thing, but a prod is better yet—just ‘‘a word to the wise is sufficient.”

We must learn to hold the whip-hand over ourselves at all times—to be keener against ourselves than any one can possibly be.

If we would win we must hold the balance of power against ourselves in our own hands. We must be a spur to ourselves.

Plato said, ‘‘Know thyself.”’

We must study the supreme ego that dwells within us, studying and fortifying its weak- nesses and strongholds. We must determine to be victor over every rebuff and to never let the soul know defeat.

Defeat comes only when we have not lived up to our highest possibilities.

We must let only a supreme ‘‘I will” possess us.

We must learn to be adepts in the art of winning—to turn the ‘‘slings of outrageous fortune’’ to our advantage.

A daily self-examination of ourselves will lead to this. Above all must it be done when rebuffs come to us. We must learn not to take them resentfully, but rather to use them as a magnifying glass with which to discover our weaknesses and thus forewarn us.

We must hold the whip-hand of impartial judgment ever.

Then we are captains of our destiny.

— Annie Miller Knapp.