Part 11
The power that impels him is dynamic. It grows out of an inertia charged with the vibration of living eternal forces—a training that fits him to propel himself into chaos and evolve order and profit—out of an education that shows him =how=—out of a system that changes to suit altered conditions—out of the same mighty impulses that have fashioned the conquerors of armies, or nations, leaders of men, the world’s financiers, the masters of commerce, the uplifters, governors and kings of men.
_LIFE AND ALL IT IMPLIES, ALL ITS INCIDENTS, HAPPINESS, RENOWN, COMPENSATIONS, ARE IN THE TRAIN OF THE MAN WHO DARES. HE MAY EVEN SCALE THE WALLS OF PARADISE TO GAIN A CROWN OF ETERNAL GLORY._
=Life and all it implies are in the train of the man who dares.= Stirred by his energy, every one of the billions of living principles of life that form his body, is an individual acting in unison to maintain his physical balance, and to free his brain from the clouds and vapors of an infected atmosphere. He is made immune to the attacks of pestilences, and follows the universal law of ceaseless activity that keeps the earth, the sun and the millions of suns and planets in the firmament in their proper places. Death, disease, infection, poverty, disgrace are nothing to the man who dares, he rises above and beyond their reach. He builds his castle with hope and cements its walls with imperishable faith in his own powers, and anchors it with good works. He says: “I will not die until I have won,” and he dares to cast his hopes into one throw of the dice—and wins, and in the winning lives. What is life to a clod? To a blind mole? To a man who never lifts his eyes to the gleaming stars, or raises them beyond the brittle straws that clog his feet? To the man who dares, life is a tumult of happiness, of radiant love, of a joyous household, a fortress of friends. His hair turns gray, his limbs grow weak, and his eyes are dim, but around his bedside hover the deeds he has done, his nostrils snuff in the incense of his successes, and he dies content that he will still live in the posterity that he has dared raise up to follow in his footsteps.
=Life and all incidents are in the train of the man who dares.=
In the great center of life, with its circumference everywhere and nowhere, the incidents of life are few and mere matters of routine. But they must be gained, and can not be gained except by the man who dares. Beginning with nothing but his muscles, courage, and high hopes, the boy who dares forces his way through rain and storm, sunshine and shadow; quaffs to the dregs the cup of disappointment and refills it with determination. From the lowest rung of the social or business ladder, he mounts upward rung by rung, gaining here and there a fresh supply of energy, until bursting forth from a chrysalis of helplessness into an initiative, he assumes first place and dares still more to reach after the mastery. He dares the professions and becomes a statesman or a scientist influenced by a desire to benefit his fellowmen. In the mercantile, manufacturing, and commercial world, his name is a synonym of honesty and probity, fair dealing, justice and impartiality. The hands and mouths of his less daring fellowmen never depart empty. The train of evils that follow humanity, he knows are mere incidents in life and he does what he can and may to alleviate them, and in their alleviation he finds comfort and joy. “Do unto others as ye would that others do unto you,” is the absorbing incident of life, the concentration, amalgamation of all other incidents. “This do and thou shalt live.”
=Happiness is in the train of the man who dares.= “As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man who hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.” The man who dares fill this quiver with arrows needs no other happiness. All other kinds, varieties, and species of happiness follow in its train. Most of our happiness is “so-called,” that is we think it is happiness, but it becomes bitter after a while and then sours. True happiness never ferments, never corrupts. The man who dares would not dare take a course in the school of dissipation, he is too much of a man and has the courage of his convictions. There are certain things every man must do to be happy, and the man who dares does them. He must dare to do right, to keep away from bad company, to avoid the ungodly, and the devil and all his works are rendered innocuous by his daring to discountenance them.
=Renown is in the train of the man who dares.= To be in every man’s mouth, as Caesar, Napoleon, Washington, is what many claim to be renown. But the word means far more. It means honor, glory, and peace, and these go “to every man that worketh good.” Every act of the man who dares is an achievement of greater or less degree, and although he may not have an exalted reputation to the great outer world, he is enshrined in the hearts of his friends and acquaintances. The man who dares shines bright in the firmament of teachers who have made good by exalting others. He leads where others may follow and succeed, and as a guide, teacher and example, his renown is not limited to an immediate circle of people astonished at his daring, but accumulates force as time passes, and soon becomes a rule of conduct, a precedent to be followed as rigidly as a mathematical proposition in Euclid. Most men are content with what they have and never go beyond their own possessions and desires. They have grown rich, and then it is “Let us eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.” This is the fool’s theory, but it is not that of the man who dares, because he wanders off into new fields of operation, attempts new cultures, adds something to the phases of life, and as such, becomes renowned, whether he has a high sounding epitaph on his tombstone or not. People do not go to cemeteries to seek for souvenirs of the man who dares, his life and deeds are impressed upon the plastic material of every brain within reach of his influence. There he is enshrined; there he possesses the renown he dared seek, and, as in his other deeds of daring, he succeeds.
=Compensations are in the train of the man who dares.= Compensation is a higher, nobler word than wealth, riches, money, or jewels. Money is a good thing to possess, and wealth is not to be despised, but the love of money is the root of all evil. Have you never noticed that the harder a man strives to get money the farther he gets away from it? This is in pursuance of a law of nature, that in striving too hard to acquire anything, we omit some essential that if remembered would bring it to us. There are certain things that if we dare do them, other things will unexpectedly come to us in the way of compensation.
Money, wealth, riches, etc., are a recompense, a remuneration, of course, but of themselves they are mere wages for labor performed. But when we speak of “compensation,” we allude to something of greater value than mere dollars and cents which procure bread and meat, clothes, a roof for our heads, and certain pleasures. But a hog has all of these in his own way and to his own satisfaction; but the man who dares does not belong to that branch of the animal kingdom. He is a man and claims a man’s compensation, or so acts that the desired compensation will be forthcoming. Think of the words of Othello and ponder a little over their meaning:
“Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, Is the immediate jewel of their souls. Who steals my purse, steals trash; ’tis something, nothing; ’Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands; But he that filches from me my good name Robs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed.”
The Story of a Rising Race Told in Pictures
_PHOTOGRAPHED FROM LIFE_
│MUSIC Special Collection D │THE DRAMA │SOCIAL LIFE │PHYSICAL CULTURE
In the great game of grab after money, which is enthralling the earth at the present time, the man who dares takes no part except to see that his compensation is adequate to his efficiency. His abnegation of the canker worm of gold is a strong recommendation in his favor, and brings him much more than it does to one who bites every dollar to test its genuineness. He becomes renowned for this disposition, and nobody turns him down on any proposition for everybody knows that his disposition is to dare, to venture, to try, to win, to succeed. It is the best sort of renown to possess; it is a policy, really a dare.
He knows that everything comes to him who knows how to wait, and he plays the waiting game in a diplomatic manner, so diplomatic, indeed, that he wins.
=The man who dares may scale the walls of Paradise to gain a crown of eternal glory.= Nobody can slide through St. Peter’s gate unobserved. It requires a constant fight to reach it even, and blessed is he who gets that far, for he is sure to enter. We have it from the Saviour Himself: “And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.”
There is authority, therefore, for saying that the man who dares may scale the walls of Paradise. The fact is, that a mollycoddle cannot be connected with the idea of taking the kingdom of heaven by force. It requires a man who dares to accomplish that feat, and it is the man who dares that gets there.
Let us suppose that you are a timid man and have little initiative—that is you are a follower of somebody and can not lead in anything. You must raise some steam and get a move on or you will never succeed. That is a settled fact, and if you to whom this is addressed, can not raise enough steam to start out on a dare, why then, fall out and let somebody else take your place in the waiting line.
Suppose you wanted to make a stagger at a dare, how would you go about it! That’s about the idea you are after. Well, in the first place, you must make ready. You can not ride without a horse, and even if you have a horse, he is no good to you unless you know how to ride. To learn to ride, you must get on the horse, of course, and take your chances of being thrown or of falling off through sheer fright.
That is nothing. A few bruises are honorable scars in the onward struggle. Let us start you our way:
=Fix your mind on what you aim at and never lose sight of it. It is your target.=
=Fix a straight road toward it. This will enable you to get there sooner, and if there are competitors, you will out-distance them.=
=Make a start. You may not be entirely ready and may have to stop on the way for repairs, but all the same—start. Some people are always making ready and never starting, so they never get anywhere because they never start. It is better to start, even if you have to return and begin over again. It shows your intention to win out, and that will encourage your backers, or find backers if you have none.=
=Don’t wander. Keep on the straight road, and don’t let counter attractions tempt you away. Keep thinking about what you are going to do when you arrive, and build up a strong castle.=
=Let tomorrow’s troubles take care of themselves. The saying is: “Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.” Fight the troubles that you have in hand now, and you will gain skill to fight those of tomorrow.=
=Attend to your own business and let other people’s alone. You can’t take care of your own business and that of another at the same time. To do that a man must sit on two stools at once. A difficult thing to do and not fall between. Try this as an experiment.=
=Keep your nerve, and your eyes in front. There are always times when a man meets some obstacle that spells failure if he lets it. Don’t let failure appear in any shape. Cut the word out of your dictionary.=
=Make haste slowly. This is an old saying of the Romans who knew a few things about success. Hurry, but hurry slowly. That is, be careful in getting everything ready and then make a break for the target. A man can act quickly and methodically, which is making haste slowly.=
=Take plenty of physical exercise. You do not have to go to a gymnasium to get enough exercise. Take a walk for the sake of walking. You can not make exercise work and derive any benefit from it. You must take pleasure in it or it is work and not exercise.=
=Do not work ahead. Keep your mind up with your work. Do not think about the hours it will take to complete it. If you do that, you will tire out your mind and make it do extra work. Mind and body should keep together.=
=Dare to aspire to a higher position. Study to get it. Talk with others who have risen and find out how they got there. Don’t copy them, but try to initiate some better way. If you are sawing boards, study how to run the engine, and incidentally learn how to manage the whole business. It can not harm a man doing a small work to know how to do a greater one. He will be ready to slip into the better work when the opportunity comes and it is sure to come.=
=Do not run behind in your work. This is a fatal deficiency. It means a backward movement and you must keep on pressing forward. If you feel yourself going back, study the reason. Perhaps you are bilious, eating too much, or not enough nourishing food. Keep your body working regularly, for your health is the most important item toward success.=
=Save your money. But do not become a miser. You must live among others and you can not afford to be considered small or mean. But you do not have to squander money for any reason. If you are considered mean because you refuse to squander money, let it go at that, and some day you will be better understood. Such things are small details not worth noticing.=
=Keep in touch with the outside world. Read newspapers and magazines and learn to discuss or talk over the various topics of the day, whether you understand them or not. Somebody will give you the keynote and then you will add to your stock of knowledge. You can not learn too much, you may fail by not knowing enough. Please remember this, no man is turned down because he knows too much.=
=Learn to master yourself. Don’t let anything ruffle your temper, and think seriously before starting a fight. You may win the fight but lose your own self-respect and gain enmity. A man can not afford to throw away a friend. He needs all he can get.=
=Don’t be afraid to work. Take work as it comes to you. Do not select the easiest jobs, or you will get tired of the hard ones before you reach them. Accustom yourself to work easily, and with your whole heart and skill.=
=Give your imagination full swing as to the uses of the work you are doing, and imagine how you could better it. This is efficiency and leads to invention.=
=Don’t brag about what you can do. Do it and there will not be any need to brag. Everybody will see what sort of a man you are and give you credit for common sense and for knowing more than you really do.=
=Surround yourself with good influences, a club, a church, or some society where you will be in touch with other men. Nobody who dares can afford to be a hermit, and the man who gets disheartened at the obstacles in his way, is a fool and ought not to and will not succeed.=
=Keep away from small vices and the large ones will not trouble you. This will make your sailing on a smooth sea, where there are no rocks or concealed reefs to wreck you.=
There are many other things that pertain to human life in its aspects as a road to success. But when you have done your best, do not be anxious because you have not done more. No man can accomplish everything in one short life, and the best we can do is all that is required of us. Look upon every man as a fellow worker, not in a vale of tears, but as cultivating a pleasant valley blooming with flowers. If your friend falls down help him up, and he will help you in return. If he offends you, do not notice it, for no man deliberately offends a friend. If disagreement is likely to lead to trouble, turn around to your opponent’s way of thinking. Everybody has burdens to bear; and never forget that yours are not the only ones hard to carry. Be a man who dares, and when life’s fitful fever is over, and you have accomplished all you could according to your lights and your ability, let a feeling of peace steal over you, and trust in God for the rest.
The man who desires to become a man of courage, and a man who dares, may gain force from the words of wisdom in the wise man’s philosophy expressed in the following essentials.
“Who so wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the loving kindness of the Lord.”
—(_Psalms CV, 11–43._)
THE WISE MAN’S PHILOSOPHY
A WORLD OF KNOWLEDGE
For Progressive Colored Americans
“The wise in heart shall be called prudent: and the sweetness of the lips increaseth learning.”
—(_Proverbs XVI, 21_)
The Secret of Successful Work
Knowing how to work is a secret all men do not possess.
When a man is born his life work is born with him, but the work he does remains after he is gone. Hence the necessity of doing good work for the evil work we do remains along with the good and hangs upon it like fetters upon a felon’s wrists.
Whether a man works with his hands or his brain he exhausts, uses up a certain quantity of his physical body. His brain, muscles, and every part of his body are drawn upon to help do the work in hand.
Now, a man may lessen the hardship of his work, or he may increase it by his manner of doing it.
When any work is begun, a certain amount of vital energy is started up and continues working until it is stopped. That energy is like the movement of a clock pendulum—it keeps on moving back and forth as long as it is kept wound up. When the clock runs down, the pendulum stops because there is no stored up force to keep it in motion.
This is exactly what takes place in the body when we work. We set the pendulum in motion and it keeps on going until the clock runs down, that is until we drop with exhaustion.
This vital energy is an intellectual quality, and when we work our mind keeps it active. It is the same when we make hard work of any job. The vital energy works hard also.
Some men, sawing a stick of wood, for instance, will begin sweating over the job before they have half sawed it through. That is, they have already finished the job so far as their vital energy is concerned but more vital energy must be exhausted to complete it.
Do not let your mind run ahead of your work, but keep it up even with that work. Then you will not tire out, and after a good sleep you will be fresh to begin another day. Work easily and steadily.
The Key to Success
Character; Education; Industry; Wealth.
These are the successive stages on the road to success, and they follow in their regular order.
Character belongs to every man individually, and can not be copied from another. It lies in the man; that is all anybody can tell about it. Natural probity combined with insight into what you are doing, your trade, business, occupation, etc., are the factors that make up character. It is different from reputation, for a man may have a bad reputation and still possess a good character. But he can not have a bad character and possess a good reputation. The power to succeed in business is character.
Education goes with character, and means more than learning or mere knowing. It means capacity and ability to utilize what you know. This is education.
You must not only know things but also know how to apply your knowledge, otherwise you are as well off as if you knew nothing.
Industry means diligence in developing character and utilizing education for all they are worth.
“The hand of the diligent maketh rich,” says Solomon, the wisest man that ever lived. He also says, “The diligent gaineth favor.”
Wealth comes by the observance of the foregoing and certain things which should be added. For instance:
To become industrious you must give yourself and your fellow man a fair exchange for what you receive.
You must watch your intellectual, spiritual and worldly welfare.
Progressive Colored Americans must seek opportunity which does not come of itself, and which has been denied them in the past.
You must make yourself, and follow high standards.
Start Right in Life By Avoiding Foolish and Unnecessary Extravagances
Economy tells us we must learn to do without many things we would like, and forego all unnecessary luxuries, recreations and pleasures which call for money.
We can be happy without these things and enjoy the forgotten pleasures of home.
Cut down on rent, table, clothes, etc.
The burden of economy falls upon the women who do the marketing, cooking and housework.
Let the men save on personal expenses. A woman can throw out more at the back door than a man can bring in through the front, but his billiards or pool, cigars and drinks soon devour the pennies and dimes saved by the wife.
Do not buy what you do not need or that you can get along without.
Do not make fun of pennies and dimes as unimportant. Instead of saying, “It is only a penny,” say “It is a whole penny.”
Strive to learn economical buying. No one has enough money to say that cost is of no account. Get the very best for your money. Don’t buy blindly without inquiring the price, and always remember that a penny or a dime in your pocket is just as much at home as in that of the merchant.