NOTHING TO DO | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 28, 1882

NOTHING TO DO.

MEN and women with no business, nothing to do, are absolutely pests to society. They are thieves, stealing that which is not theirs; beggars, eating that which they have not earned; drones, wasting the fruits of others’ industry; leeches, sucking the blood of others; evil-doers, setting an example of idleness and dishonest living; vampires, eating out the life of the community.

Many of our most interesting youth waste a great portion of their life in fruitless endeavors at nothing. They have no trade, no profession, no object before them, nothing to do, and yet have a great desire to do something, and something worthy of themselves. They try this and that and the other; offer themselves to do anything and everything, and yet know how to do nothing. Educate themselves they cannot, for they know not what they should do it for. They waste their time, energies, and little earnings in endless changes and wanderings. They have not the stimulus of a fixed object to fasten their attention and awaken their energies; not a known prize to win. They wish for good things, but have no way to attain them, desire to be useful, but have little means for being so. They lay plans, invent schemes, form theories, build castles, but never stop to execute and realize them. Poor creatures! All that ails them is the want of an object—a single object! They look at a hundred and see nothing. If they should look steadily at one, they would see it distinctively. They grasp at random a hundred things, and catch nothing. It is like shooting among a scattered flock of pigeons—the chances are doubtful. This will never do—no, never. Success, respectability, and happiness are found in a permanent basis. An early choice of some business, devotion to it, and preparation for it, should be made by every youth.—Anon.