• Author: Unknown
• Editor: B-7413
• Newspaper: The Umpire volume 6
• Page Number:
• Date: 10 24 1917
• Tags:
• advice

THE SPIRIT OF OVERCOMING

We are told that primitive man was an easy-going fellow, with but little inclination to fret about troubles and very much given to taking things as they happened along. He was contented to live an idle, unthinking life, making no preparation for the morrow, and was most happy when following the line of least resistance. In other words he simply vegetated.

The same holds true of some pcople of today; they don’t like the thought of work, and prefer to live from hand to mouth rather than make a serious effort at anything. They remain passive, waiting for somebody to come along and do their thinking for them— to take up their burden and make the way smooth for a life of ease.

This class of men is doomed to pass away in the near future, because nature, industry and knowledge—in fact, the entire world—is against him as a matter of social economy. For only in retura for labor expended, and difficulties overcome, will a man be tolerated in the coming age of efficiency. If one considers that invention, discovery and achievement don’t just happen, but are the results of earnest effort, hard toil and serious thinking, it will not be difficult to understand that useful men don’t just happen by pot-luck. They are made so by hard work—constant application of muscle and serious thinking; and the civilization we are enjoying today is due to the energy of those who have brought this condition to pass.

Advancement in any line can not be accounted for in any other way than through the mastery of obstacles that impede the way.

To be sure, every man has difficulties and obstacles to overcome. He may be dejected or over-awed by them, and he may whine and complain that luck’s against him. But that is not the proper attitude to assume. No one having a manly spirit within him will permit anything to keep him from attaining a worthy object.

If we look about us we can see that nature is a wonderful teacher of persistency from which we can gain inspiration to persevere. For it is evident that the seed has to struggle through the soil in order to blossom in the sunshine.

Many a man never really learns what strength he can develop until he comes up against a wall of difficulties that will demand the use of every faculty he has in order to break through.

It would be well to remember that a man may have to face sudden death and nothing but his presence of mind will save him. If he has made it a practise to think quickly and use his initiative constantly in facing life’s difficulties, the chances for saving himself by his wit will be greatly enhanced in that extremity.