• Author: Unknown
• Editor: B-7413
• Newspaper: The Umpire volume 5
• Page Number:
• Date: 10 11 1916
• Tags:
• advice
• opinion

REBUILDING TO ATTAIN

Perhaps you have been told some time in life that you will have a second chance to make good, seeing that you have made a mess of it so far; that whatever your wasted opportunities may have been, the dead past will bury its dead and whatever misconduct may be laid up against you, there is still a chance to retrieve. Well, that is true. But bear in mind that the effect of your deeds still remain and in the long run will tind you out. That which you have done has been engraved upon the mind for all time and may never be erased.

There is little use writing of any sentiment that may actas a deterrent to earnest endeavor; to do so would be to suggest the diseased and flowing fancies of the dyspeptic who, because he does not like the earth or his neighbors, wants to share his spleen and make them see all things through the spyglass of his own atrabilious temperament.

It may be said that it is the ‘‘last infirmity of noble minds’’ that one keeps on to the very end wanting to rebuild and make some- thing of himself and be something better than he has been; and without question he should have every opportunity offered him to “make good.” If you have some sure device to dampen his ardor and to annihilate his enthusiasm, keep the recipe to yourself. He knows already all the discomfitures there are, unless he has been coddled all his years.

Perhaps one may recall that in our nursery days there was a brave spirit of make-believe, which is to the serious purposes of adult life what the seed is to a plant full-grown. ‘‘There is a gallant spirit in a child that looks on all the world as its playhouse and every breathing creature as a friend. That is why young children are captivating, why every baby is a monarch and his perambulator a throne. His smile is the most winsome aspect of creation, and we sombre grown-ups get down on our hands and knees to win that royal favor. The world is in the. habit of conferring princely rewards upon its mirthmakers. All the world loves a joker—if he is not-a mere inveterate punster. It wants to hear a funny story—if it is apposite and pithy. But the when and the where of a joke are quite as important to consider as the wit of it.”

Though you may not keep pictures on your wall or table of those you most admire, yet you may have the mental imagery, and you long to grow to be like them. They are not those who look on the seamy side, who rejoice in flaws, who bear tattle and false witness, who are ready to object and are filled with fearsome surmises. They are not borrowers of trouble. They seem illumined and they are the first to see a rift in the clouds when there are such. If you adapt yourself to their likeness you may not win fame, but your life will become worth while in the effort to attain that end.