--- 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: 6 number: 5 published: 1903-03 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, "Put Yourself into Your Work," *Improvement Era* 6, no. 5 (March 1903): 361.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0605unse 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: improvementera0605unse start_page: 361 end_page: 361 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1903-03) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0605unse publication_year: 1903 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 1903, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Put Yourself into Your Work LIFE'S MISSION. ■ 361 overtaxed, and that it is better to leave it free to take some big, important thing yet unknown; some, in fear the body will give out. There can be found many of middle age, and older people, who have been constantly expecting, from their youth, to hit upon that particular work which would bring to them fame and fortune, but here we find them dropping into the great beyond, having lived without a purpose. In youth their efforts were unstable, purpose- less. Early manhood and maturity was equally undefined. Some are afraid. Some have a hope that the rich will signal them from the common herd, and boost them to fame and fortune. Som© want to begin at the top of the ladder. Put all these follies away, young men, and young women, and come to the conclusion that work is what will bring success. You have time on your hands, and, as he is "no respecter of persons,' you will have to learn to respect him; for if you don't, the minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years, will roll by; and, before you are aware, you are in middle life and just where you were at twen- ty, wandering purposeless, unsettled, drifting. I heard a story once in which an old man told another that "He lived to work.'' Think of that, "live to work". Remember that "an idle brain is the devil's workshop," that work is the redeemer of civilization, that the workers on earth are those who are the honored ones, the sucessful ones, whose names are landmarks to our country's great- ness. PUT YOURSELF INTO YOUR WORK. If you would have your work count for something, put your- self into it; put character, originality, individuality into everything you do. Don't be satisfied to be an automaton. Determine that whatever you do in life shall be a part of yourself, and that it shall be stamped with superiority. Remember that everything you do of real value must have the impress of yourself upon it, and let that be the evidence of excellence and superiority. You will find that devotion to your work will pay. Superior- ity of method, progressiveness, and up-to-dateness, leavened with your own individuality, are permanent.—Success.