Fundamentals—Responsibility—Definite Aim—Power of a Purpose—Habit—System
By L. P.
Letters to a Young Man—No. 1
Fundamentals—Responsibility—Definite Aim—Power of a Purpose—Habit—System
MY DEAR ROBERT,—
Your letter of last week finds me more than busy, but it deserves and shall have such an answer as I am able to give it without careful preparation. I am deeply interested in all that concerns you; and your frank request for a little advice touching the life upon which you are now entering as an employee in ——'s large commercial house, makes a strong appeal to me.
To be sure, I might with some show of reason refer you to older men, reminding you of the saying, "Days should speak, and multitude of years should teach wisdom." I am but a young man myself, and in my saner moments, at least, feel that I am more fit for receiving than for giving wise counsel. Nevertheless, like other young men, I am prone to advise my friends; and if my convictions lack the sanction of gray hairs, they may possess the slight advantage of not being worn-out. Not that I mean to lay claim to originality. It takes a young man to excel in commonplaces, to tell with an air of impressive solemnity what everybody knew long ago; but if he has found out those things for himself, they are not stale commonplaces to him, but fresh, living realities, and as such to be urged upon his friends with what power and enthusiasm he is able to command.
You say, my dear Robert, that being in a strange city, aloof from friends and relatives, and surrounded with new companions, and having new duties to perform, you are in a very real sense making a fresh start in life, and you are anxious that it shall be a right start. The sentiment is a natural one. Hope tells every aspiring man, and rightfully, I believe, that "the best is yet to be." There is exquisite pleasure in the sense of leaving our failures behind, and pressing on to what we hope, at least, will be successes. For my part I like to think of every new day as coming to me direct from the kind hand of a bountiful Creator, pure as the morning air, fresh as a wild rose on which the dew still lingers, and fragrant with unknown possibilities of good. But it is not to be denied that there are critical epochs in our lives, points of time at which actions take on peculiar meaning and importance because they are instinct with such far-reaching results. At these epochal moments we do well to look ourselves squarely in the face, and ask some plain questions.
Such an epoch has come in your life. You are considering many things as it were de novo, and you must begin with your relation to what is eternal, everlasting. The words will come to you with new force: "In the beginning, God." Human life takes on its true meaning and sacredness only as it is seen to be part of the divine plan of the ages. The fundamental fact for you and me, as for all right-thinking young men, is that we wholly belong to God. Conversion is meaningless unless it include consecration. The religion of the Bible is not what its enemies have called it, a kind of insurance against the fires of hell; but a present joyous surrendering of one's whole energies to the service of Christ. A man's faith in God lies back of everything else in his nature, and gives value to his life-work. He must be right before he can do right.
Next to this full recognition of the divine claim upon him it seems to me that the young man should have a pretty definite aim in life. In other words, he should begin early to specialize. It is possible that your tastes are not so completely formed that you can decide definitely upon your life-work; but you can be studying your bent and capabilities with a view to a wise choice when the proper time comes. Moreover, tho you may not now decide upon the profession you are to follow for life, you can set for yourself some noble object of a more or less temporary character, and give your energies to its accomplishment. There is nothing like the cherishing of a noble purpose to brace a man against the trivialities and allurements of the world, and give him high seriousness, force of character, and a keen sense of the value of time. The chief reason why so many young men have gone astray is because they were not, to begin with, going anywhere in particular. Their
life vessel was freighted with a precious cargo, but it lacked the well-set sails and the strong hand at the helm steering for a definite harbor. It lay in the trough of the sea, and was soon broken up by the elements. The winds that might have wafted it safely to its desired haven, became its destruction.
Let me further illustrate what I mean by a definite purpose. You are in business at present; but unless I am much mistaken, you do not expect always to stand behind a counter. You have some literary ambition. Now if you definitely decide to devote your leisure time during the next two years to getting a literary training, you will not only make appreciable progress toward your goal, but you will escape a thousand temptations that are continually assailing young men who have no clearly defined purpose. Your evenings will be fully occupied, and that profitably and enjoyably. You will not be free to devote yourself to the round of social gaiety; you may not make a very wide circle of acquaintances; but you will make fast friends of some men and women who like yourself have a purpose in life. Your purpose, then, will be a veritable life-preserver, and a source as well of abiding peace and satisfaction. Moreover, it will win you influence and promotion. It is surprising how quickly obstacles melt away before a resolute purpose. Everybody makes way for the man who knows whither he is going. The stars in their courses fight for the man with a purpose.
The next important thing after a life purpose, is the formation of good habits. Without these a purpose is of little use, not because it is inoperative, but because it necessarily operates very wastefully. The purpose furnishes the heat, the initiative force; the habits, the machinery by which it is utilized. We are all to a certain extent creatures of habit. Whenever a thing is done in the same way time after time until it is done without thinking, that thing has become a habit; and good or bad, it will be hard to break off. It is a great saving of time to have even a few fixed habits; but if we were to cultivate systematically our habit-making powers, we should be able to relegate to the mechanical realm many of the things that now occupy a lot of the time which should be devoted to matters really requiring an exercise of the reasoning powers.
In general young men need to cultivate the habit of doing things systematically,—of having a place in the day's program for each duty, and doing it the same way each time till it becomes habitual. To be able thus to apportion out one's work, and take it up in the right order, piece by piece, is advantageous in many ways. First, it does away with hurry, which is always wasteful.13Secondly, it makes it possible for one to do things promptly. Thirdly, it is a great time-saver, for it largely eliminates that not inconsiderable time which slips away between the completion of one piece of work and the definite determination to take up another. Fourthly, it puts one in a position to get the most help from others, for even the busiest people are able to render service to the man who plans ahead. Fifthly, it brings into the life even of the hardest-worked man a certain calm serenity, which is greatly conducive to health of mind and body. The cause of this serenity is not hard to find. When the work is systematized, duties come not three or four abreast, but in single file. A man has just one thing to do at a time, and he can be a whole man to that thing. Not only can he do it far better than he could if he were distracted by a half dozen other things, but he can do it with greater ease.
And now before closing let me anticipate a little as to the view you are likely to take of this matter of being systematic. Like most young men, you are not naturally methodical, and may feel at the outset that regular habits of study, something to occupy each waking hour, will involve a kind of bondage. It may seem to you that when you keep regular, hours at business, your leisure time should be free. That is the view taken by a good many young men; but if you will look into their standing and prospects, you will find that these are the ones who wonder why their services are not better appreciated, and why others are always preferred before them when promotions occur. Then again, system provides also for some hours for innocent recreation, and the time thus spent becomes far more enjoyable when definitely planned as part of a rational system than when taken indiscriminately. Thus system adds to the pleasures of life as well as vastly increasing its power for good. This is all for to-night. You know I am always glad to hear from you. Affectionately yours,
L. P.
