--- 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: 24 number: 4 published: 1921-02 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, "Think and Will," *Improvement Era* 24, no. 4 (February 1921): 350–350.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2404unse 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: improvementera2404unse start_page: 350 end_page: 350 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1921-02) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2404unse publication_year: 1921 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 1921, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Think and Will Think and Will The great inventor, Thomas A. Edison, recently said: "One great trouble with the world today is that people wander from place to place and are never satisfied with anything. They are shiftless and thoughtless. They revolt from buckling down to doing hard work and hard thinking. They refuse to take the time and the trouble to lay solid foundations; they are too superficial, too flighty, too easily bored. They fail to adopt the right spirit toward their life-work and consequently fail to enjoy the satisfaction and the happiness which come from doing a job, no matter what it is, absolutely in the best way within their power. Failing to find the joy which they should find in accomplishing something, they turn to every imaginable variety of amusement. Instead of learning to drink in joy through their minds, they try to find it, without effort, — through their eyes and their ears and sometimes their stomachs. * * * "The man who doesn't make up his mind to cultivate the habit of thinking, misses the greatest pleasure in life. He not only misses the greatest pleasure, but he cannot make the most of himself All progress, all success springs from thinking." In addition to thinking, willing, showing determination, is a very important thing. If once you can get the will to work — — to accomplish a purpose you have gone a long way towards final conquest. Frequently, young men complain that they cannot do certain things, for example, leave off the use of tobacco. One young man recently declared, "I have used tobacco a number of years, and I cannot promise to quit it now." With the knowledge that he possesses concerning the detriment of tobacco to his mind and body, he should not only think what is best for him, and think hard, but he should will, and will hard to quit. Scores of examples are at hand in which men have quit the — use of tobacco men who have used it for years and years because they knew it was injurious to them ; they set their minds to it, and willed to do it. Many mature men who have joined the Church, when hearing of the Word of Wisdom and thinking of the results of keeping it, and of the promises made to those who observe the commandments, have decided to quit the use of tobacco. Shall a young man, then, say he cannot do it? A very excellent example of an older man who quit, because he learned from his doctor that it was destroying his health, is given in the January American, in a biography of William Hood, for thirty-five year9 chief engineer of the Southern Pacific,