THEY NEVER HAD A CHANCE.
By Orison Swett Marden
[Orison Swett Marden, in March Success.] PROBABLY nine out of ten men past middle life, if asked how it happens that they are to-day only barely earning their living, would tell you that they “never had a chance;” that they were kept back, that circumstances were against them, that they had no opportunities, such as other boys around them had, or that they did not have the proper schooling, or else plead some similar excuse. The probabilities are that opportunity did visit every one of these men more than once in their youth or early manhood, but that they did not see that all good chances consisted in doing everything they undertook cheerfully, promptly, and just as well as it could be done. As boys, they did not look upon every errand as a chance to be polite, prompt, energetic; on every lesson in school as a foundation-stone in their success-structure. They did not think that the demoralizing hours of indolence and shiftlessness which they were weaving into the web of their lives would mar the fabric forever, and reproach them through all time. They did not realize that the impudent reply to their employer, the carelessness and indifference which they slipped into their tasks, would come out as ghosts, in the future, to mar their happiness and success. They looked upon every duty shirked, the minutes they cut off from each end of a day, as so much gain. They did not realize that these things, which seemed so innocent, would grow into giant defects which would mar their future success. They did not think that their slipshod methods, their careless attire, and their aggressive manners would lie as great bars across the path of their future success, and keep them back from the goal of their ambitions. They did not think that all these things were the real cause of their being fixtures at salaries of ten or fifteen dollars a week. They did not think that these seeming trifles in youth would doom them to be perpetual janitors, clerks, or farm hands, and that it would be almost impossible in maturity to outgrow the defects of their youth.