Self-Control, XV. Doing Our Best at all Times

—

SELF-CONTROL.* BY WILLIAM GEORGE JORDAN.

XV.— DOING OUR BEST AT ALL TIMES. Life is a wondrously complex problem for the individual, until, some day, in a moment of illumination, he awakens to the great realization that he can — make it simple, never quite simple, but always simpler. There are a thousand mysteries of right and wrong that have baffled the wise men of the ages. There are depths in the great fundamental questions of the human race that no plummet of philosophy has ever sounded. There are wild cries of honest hunger for truth that seek to pierce the silence beyond the grave, but to them ever echo back — only a repetition of their unanswered cries. To us all comes, at times, the great note of questioning despair that darkens our horizon and paralyzes our effort: "If there really be a God, if eternal justice really rule the world," we say, "why should life be as it is? Why do some men starve while others feast; why does virtue often languish in the shadow while vice triumphs in the sunshine; whv does failure so often dog the footsteps of honest effort, while the success that comes from trickery and dishonor is greeted with the world's applause? How is it that the loving father of one family is taken by death, while the worthless incumbrance of another is spared? Why is there so much unnecessary pain, sorrowing and suffering in the world why, indeed, should there be any?" Neither philosophy nor religion can give any final, satisfac-

*From Self- Control; its Kingship and Majesty. Copyright 1889 and 1905 by Fleming F. Revell Company.

tory answer that is capable of logical demonstration, of absolute pro^f . There is ever, even after the best explanations, a resid- uum of the unexplained. We must then fall back in the eternal arms of faith, and be wise enough to say, "I will not be discon- certed by these problems of life. I will not permit them to plunge

me into doubt, and to cloud my life with vagueness and uncer- tainty. Man arrogates much to himself when he demands from the Infinite the full solution of all his mysteries. I will found my

life on the impregnable rock of a simple fundamental truth: 'This glorious creation with its millions of wondrous phenomena pulsing ever inharmony with eternal law must have a Creator, that Creator must be omniscient and omnipotent. But the Creator himself cannot, in justice, demand of any creature more than the best that individual can give.' I will do each day, in every mo-

ment, the best I can by the light I hive; I will ever seek more light, more perfect illumination of truth, and ever live as best I

can in harmony with the truth as I see it. If failure come, I will meet it bravely: if my pathway then lie in the shadow of trial, sorrow and suffering, I shall have the restful peace and the calm strength of one who has done his best, who can look back upon the past with no pang of regret, and who has heroic courage in facing the results, whatever they be, knowing that he could not make them different." Upon this life-plan, this foundation, man may erect any super- structure of religion or philosophy that he conscientiously can erect; he should add to his equipment for living, every shred of strength and inspiration, moral, mental or spiritual that is in his power to secure. This simple working faith is opposed to no creed, is a substitute for none; it is but a primary belief, a citadel, a refuge where the individual can retire for strength when the battle of life grows hard. A mere theory of life, that remains but a theory, is about as useful to a man as a gilt-edged menu is to a starving sailor on a raft in mid-ocean. It is irritating but not stimulating. No rule for higher living will help a man in the slightest, until he reach out and appropriate it for himself, until he make it practical in his daily life, until that seed of theory in his mind blossom into a thousand flowers of thought and word and act.

SELF-CONTROL. 793

If a man honestly seeks to live his best at all times, that determination is visible in every moment of bis living. No trifle in his life can be too insignificant to reflect his principle of living. The sun illuminates and beautifies a fallen leaf by the roadside as impar- tially as a towering mountain peak in the Alps. Every drop of water in the ocean is an epitome of the chemistry of the whole ocean; every drop is subjected to precisely the same laws as dom- inate the united infinity of billions of drops that make that mira- cle of Nature, men call the Sea. No matter how humole the calling of the individual, how uninteresting and dull the round of his duties, he should do his best. He should dignify what he is doing by the mind he puts into it; he should vitalize what little he has of power or energy, of ability or opportunity, in order to pre- pare himselt to be equal to higher privileges when they come. This will never lead man to that weak content that is satisfied with whatever falls to his lot. It will rather fill his mind with the divine discontent that cheerfully accepts the best, — merely as a temporary substitute for something better. The man who is seeking ever to do his best is the man who is keen, active, wide-awake and aggressive. He is ever watchful of himself in trifles; his standard is not "What will the world say?" but "Is it worthy of me?" Edwin Booth, one of the greatest actors on the American stage, would never permit himself to assume an ungraceful atti- tude, even in his hours of privacy. In this simple thing he ever

lived his best. On the stage every move was one of unconscious grace. Those of his company who were conscious of their motions were the awkward ones, who were seeking in public to undo or to conceal the carelessness of the gestures and motions of their private life. The man who is slipshod and thoughtless in his daily speech, whose vocabulary is a collection of amemic com- monplaces, whose repetition of phrases and extravagance of inter- jections act as but feeble disguises to his lack of ideas, will never be brilliant on an occasion when he longs to outshine the stars. Living at one's best is constant preparation for instant use. It

can never make one over-precise, self-conscious, affected or prig- gish. Education, in its highest sense, is conscious training of mind

or body to act unconsciously. It is conscious formation of mental habits, not mere acquisition of information. One of the many ways in which the individual unwisely eclipses himself, is in his worship of the fetich of luck. He feels that all others are lucky, and that whatever he attempts, fails. He does not realize the untiring energy, the unremitting concentration, the heroic courage, the sublime patience that is the secret of some men's success. Their "luck" was that they had prepared them- selves to be equalto their opportunity when it came and were awake to recognize it and receive it. His own opportunity came and departed unnoted, it would not waken him from his dreams of some untold wealth that would fall into his lap. So he grows dis- couraged and envies those whom he should emulate, and he band- ages his arm and chloroforms hi i ?nergies and performs his duties in a perfunctory way, or he passes through ife, just eve: "sampling" lines of activity. The honest, faithful struggler should always realize that fail- ure but an episode in a true man's life, is — never the whole story. It is never easy to meet, and no philosophy can make it so, but the

steadfast courage to meet conditions instead of complaining of them, will help him on his way; it will ever enable him to get the best out of what he has. He never knows the long series of van- quished failures that give solidity to some one else's success; he does not realize the price that some rich man, the innocent foot- ball of political malcontents and demagogues, has heroically paid for wealth and position. The man who has a pessimist's doubt of all things; who de- mands a certified guarantee of his future; who ever fears his work will not be recognized or appreciated; or that, after all, it is really not worth while, will never live his best. He is dulling his capacity for real progress by his hypnotic course of excuses for inactivity, instead of a strong tonic of reasons for action. One of the most weakening elements in the individual make- up, is the surrender to the on-coming of years. Man's self- confidence dims and dies in the fear of age. "This new thought," he says of some suggestion tending to higher development, "is good; it is what we need. I am glad to have it for my children;

I would have been happy to have had some such help when I was

SELF-CONTROL. 795

at school, but it is too late for me. I am a man advanced in

years." This is but blind closing of life to wondrous possibilities. The knell of lost opportunity is never tolled in this life. It is

never too late to recognize truth and to live by it. It requires only greater effort, closer attention, deeper consecration; but the impossible does not exist for the man who is self-confident and is willing to pay the price in time and struggle for his suc- cess or development. Later in life the assessments are heavier in progress, as in life insurance, but that matters not to that mighty self-confidence that will not grow old while knowledge can keep it young. Socrates, when his hair whitened with the snow of age, learned to play on instruments of music. Cato, at fourscore, be- gan his study of Greek, and the same age &aw Plutarch beginning, with the enthusiasm of a boy, his first lessons in Latin. The Character of Man, Theophrastus' greatest work, was begun on his ninetieth birthday. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales was the work of Ronsard, the father of French poetry, the poet's declining years. whose sonnets even translation cannot destroy, did not develop his poetic faculty until nearly fifty. Benjamin Franklin at this age had just taken his really first steps of importance in philo- sophic pursuits. Arnauld, the theologian and sage, translated Josephus in his eightieth year. Wincklemann, one of the most famous writers on classic antiquities, was the son of a shoemaker, and lived in obscurity and ignorance until the prime of life.

Hobbs, the English philosopher, published • his version of the Odyssey in his eighty-seventh year, and his Iliad one year later. Chevreul, the great French scientist, whose untiring labors in the realm of color have so enriched the world, was busy, keen and active when death called him at the age of 103. These men did not fear age; these few names from the great muster-roll of the famous ones who defied the years, should be voices of hope and heartening to every individual whose courage and confidence are weak. The path of truth, higher living, truer development in every phase of life, is never shut from the individ- ual — until he closes it himself. Let man feel this, believe it and make this faith a real and living factor in his life and there are no

— .

796 IMPR VEMENT ERA

limits to his progress. He has but to live his best at all times, and rest calm and untroubled no matter what results come to his efforts. The constant looking backward to what might have been, instead of forward to what may be, is a great weakener of self- confidence. This worry for the old past, this wasted energy, for that which no power in the world can restore, ever lessens the indi- vidual's faith in himself, weakens his effort to develop himself for the future to the perfection of his possibilities. Nature, in her beautiful love and tenderness, says to man, weakened and worn and weary with the struggle, ' 'Do in the best way you can the trifle that is under your hand at this moment; do it in the best spirit of preparation for the future your thought suggests; bring all the light of knowledge from all the past to aid you. Do this and you have done your best. The past is forever closed to you. It is closed forever to you. No worry, no strug- gle, no suffering, no agony of despair can alter it. It is as much beyond your power as if it were a million years of eternity behind you. Turn all that past, with its sad hours, weakness and sin, its wasted opportunities as light, in confidence and hope, upon the

future. Turn it all in fuller truth and light so as to make each trifle of this present a new past it will be joy to look back to; each trifle a nobler and more perfect preparation for the grander, future. The present and the future you can make from it, is yours; the past has gone back, with all its messages, all its his- tory, all its records, to the God who loaned you the golden mo- ments to use in obedience to his law.

[to be continued]

The railroad people seem to think that if they can make the public under- stand how to get from New York to Santa Barbara in fifteen minutes less than it needed a year ago, the great battle of life is gained. But whoever will try the experiment of saying, "We will show you how to go from New York to the Pacific and back again, stopping forty times on the way. and coming back twice the man you were when you started," will make a genuine contribution to the uplift of that hundred million people who are called Americans. Edward Everett Hale.