Turning Obstacles Into Means of Ascent
Dr. Charles H. Parkhurst, the noted Presbyterian preacher of New York, declares that making excuses results in making “an idle man more lazy, an ignorant man more foolish, and a bad man more depraved.” “To consent to the governance of circumstances is to deny our own personal power and efficiency. It is to make ourselves the slave of circumstance, rather than to act in the light and the consciousness of such superiority lodged in ourselves as fits us to get the better of circumstances. It is to deny our birthright.” “All the progress that has ever been made in the world has been made by the men and women who, instead of being afraid of obstacles and running away from them, have climbed up onto them and used them as means of ascent, and, like the oak before the wind, have woven the blast into the fabric of their own character and activities.”