--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 4 number: 8 published: 1901-06 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, "Learning to Let Go: Selection," *Improvement Era* 4, no. 8 (June 1901): 574.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0408unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera0408unse start_page: 574 end_page: 574 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1901-06) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0408unse publication_year: 1901 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1901, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Learning to Let Go: Selection LEARNING TO LET GO. ' A great art is this, —the art of letting that go which is not worth while. In athletic contests, the runners strip themselves of everything that hinders in any way the freedom of their move- ments or retards their speed. In starting out upon life's race, the first thing necessary to success is to let everything go which hampers, or which may interfere with the possibility of reaching the goal. At the outset, it is important to choose a career which will develop the highest and noblest faculties, which will call into action the best and most unselfish attributes of our being. We should cut off all useless twigs, all mere shoots, everything which would sap the nourishment that should go to the development of the best that is within us. Of all the useless branches which sap our suecess-tree, selfish- ness is the most harmful, and the most difficult to prune. Yet, if we do not cut it off early in life, it will grow like a mushroom. Like Jonah's gourd, it will spring into monstrous life, and absorb all the vital force which should go to develop our nobler qualities. Nothing else so mars the beauty of a young life as the crop- ping out, here and there, of shoots of selfishness, which, if not diligently pruned, will, in time, overshadow the whole life-tree, cut off the sunlight, and render it impossible for it to grow to its full height. Success.