Part 14

If we could get angry with ourselves because we do not improve, that would be an anger worth cultivating. But so far as others are concerned, let your anger be mild and never reach the point of resentment, for that always leads to revenge which is a fatal emotion.

If others are the cause of anger to us, keep away from them, and if we must associate with them, keep cool and bide your opportunity.

PRACTICE LOGIC, COMMON SENSE AND TACT

When a man can give a good reason for what he does he practices logic. Not excuses for doing what he should not do, but REASONS why.

When he gives good reasons, and follows the universal practice of other men under the same circumstances, he practices common sense.

When he does things in a quiet, unobtrusive, and agreeable manner, so that other men are satisfied with his way, he practices tact.

These three qualities are badges of success among every nation and in every occupation, trade, or profession.

The business and professional resourcefulness of every man is not measured upon the quantity of his learning, or his high proficiency, but according to his ability to apply what he knows to the matter in hand.

A man may be able to measure the stars, and yet not be able to saw a board straight. Such a man may know much but he makes a poor carpenter.

A man should reason with himself as to the best way of doing anything, and then do it, giving good reasons for it.

Common sense is good judgment applied to the every day things of life, and tact is doing those things without disturbing others or by considering their feelings with as much care as you do your own.

To use a common expression: “You have got to worm things out of the world, but you must do it as gently as inserting a corkscrew in a stubborn cork.”

_ENCOURAGE OTHERS_

When you encourage others to go ahead with what they are doing, with a cheery word or a pleasant smile, you are laying up treasure for yourself. For the man you encourage will encourage you, and heaven knows we all need encouragement.

Many men stand on the verge of a precipice of indecision, not being able to decide whether they should draw back or fall over.

It is not help these men want so much as it is encouragement. They are able to help themselves but they haven’t the nerve, and you give them a word of cheer or encouragement, and they get right with themselves and their work.

If a man starts into business and you can trade with him, do so, and that will encourage him to go ahead and strive to be successful.

He may be a beginner at manufacturing something for the use of others. Tell him how his work or productions are well received, or take one yourself and use it even if you do not want it. You encourage him to go on, and by and by you may be in a position where you will need a little encouragement, then he will remember you.

It is customary for the unthinking to imagine that they must do something big or great in order to expect returns, but this is a mistake. We show our greatness in little things, because we know that many little things make up a great thing. The more small things we do the greater will be the accumulation in the end.

Do not patronize any man or he will repulse your approach; you must encourage, which is far different from patronizing. By assuming a patronizing air you assume a superiority which is disliked.

This is an age of small things that go to make up big things, and we must fall in with the conditions of the age in which we live and expect to do business.

_HOW TO LEARN SELF-CONTROL_

To master the feelings the head and the heart should work together.

All of our emotions may be said to come from the heart, and the latter is set in motion by the will power which is the head.

There are times when a man feels like “boiling over” as it is called, but policy and good judgment warn him to keep within bounds.

It is always our sentiments or feelings and emotions that need a curbing hand, our opinions can take care of themselves.

Where our feelings and our mind go together there is no trouble, for then duty and inclination go together. But where our feelings are not regulated and controlled, they become unstable and shifting. Like the winds that blow where they list and whither no man can tell, our lack of self-control may drive us to the most violent acts. We become the sport of chance desires and vagrant impulses.

Control is essential because from our ill-regulated acts much injustice and harm may be done, not only to ourselves but to others.

A man who stands above whim and caprice is a superior in strength to a man who permits his caprices to direct him.

What we call character has its emotions and passions, its affections and intense sympathies, but mastered and controlled into a whole of outward justice and fairness.

The true freeman fights himself free from blind feeling and impulse; he is a happy warrior and fights on a battlefield where his convictions and emotions are a unit.

The Martyrs possessed such self control that burning at the stake, or limbs torn by savage beast did not wring a note of pain from them. “But,” you say, “that was Divine strength.” Of course, and any one who desires the same Divine strength to aid him control his emotions, may have it for the asking.

DON’T BE A DREAMER

Waste no Time Dreaming of the Past

You are living in the present preparing for the future. The past is dead and you should let the past bury the past.

The man who dreams of the past and forgets his future, is like a man who rises in the morning not of today but of yesterday. He is going backward when his face is put in front pointing always forward.

Life is too short to be wasted in vain regrets for what has transpired in the past. Even yesterday is ancient history and best forgotten.

We have work to do in the present to perfect or accomplish something in the future; it is our time of grace, given us to grasp at opportunities as they come before us.

While you are lamenting an opportunity that escaped you yesterday, a better one comes along today and passes us unnoticed.

There is too much of this sort of sorrow experienced by the people of the earth, but when it comes to a man with an occupation, a business man or a young man getting ready for business, it is positively foolish and detrimental.

We know that it has been the practice of people in all times to fret and worry about the things of the past, for there are numerous sayings cautioning them against it. One of them is very appropriate: “Never cry over spilled milk.” It is gone and can not be restored.

Many persons may have what is called a “skeleton” in his closet, but it does not do him nor his friends any good service to keep rattling its bones continually.

If you have been very wrong in the past, repent and begin over again.

DON’T BE BASHFUL

There are many persons who stand in their own way to success by their timidity, or bashfulness.

Such people are too self-conscious, and betray their lack of self-confidence which is regarded as an evidence of ignorance, or at least, inability to perform the duties they aspire to impose upon themselves.

Every man is better acquainted with himself than anybody else, but when he relies upon the knowledge of others as superior to his own knowledge, he loses the respect of his fellows, and finally loses his own respect and becomes bashful in their presence.

You should cultivate courage and exhibit symptoms of self-confidence, for by that means you show others that you are willing to “dare” and venture a trial of your capacity.

If you are too timid and have no confidence in yourself, you must not expect others to take you except at your own valuation.

There is, however, such a thing as being over-confident and brazen, which is the extreme of timidity, and becomes boastfulness.

Men have a way of studying each other and judging from their own standpoint, and if they perceive any timidity or bashfulness, they judge against you as incompetent. On the other hand, they quickly see beneath the surface of boasting, and reach the same opinion.

Be self-confident, and gentlemanly about it, for so you will pull through any opportunity, besides making hosts of friends in a business and social way.

Look a man straight in the eye, but do not try to look him down.

DON’T BE UNDECIDED

A man who can not make up his mind to do or not to do a thing without a great deal of wobbling first one way and then another, is as bad as an unsafe wall in a building—everybody keeps off lest it fall and do some damage.

When a man has first carefully considered a project, or a certain line of action, and also taken the advice of his friends if the matter is important, he should decide one way or the other at once.

A wobbly man is weak-kneed, and not to be depended upon for any purpose.

If you have ever had dealings with that kind of a man you will understand how painful it is to wait for him to decide.

A man at a cross-roads hesitates and says: “Shall I go this way or that?” He hesitates, starts, returns, starts the other way, and finally goes the wrong way and falls into a hole.

It has passed into a proverb that, “He who hesitates is lost.”

Of course, there is reason and judgment to be observed in everything, for things should not be done at random, but when there are common sense, education, and good counsel to guide you, to hesitate then is to go wrong.

It should not take a man long to decide when there is a speculation presented him, and his decision should be obstinately against the speculation. There are too many good opportunities to succeed in ventures that are legitimate to touch speculation. It is in the legitimate field of operations that indecision is so often fatal.

There is another saying applicable to this subject: “Be sure you’re right, then go ahead.”

DON’T BE TOO BIG FOR YOUR BUSINESS

Most children must creep before they can walk. The reason is because they are not sure of their small limbs and try them before venturing to depend upon them.

When the child can walk he goes right ahead and walks all his life without fear or hesitation.

It is the same in every line of business. The business man must know just where he stands all the time, and he must begin small in order to learn how to rely upon himself.

You are looking for something big, large, something you think commensurate with your abilities. Well, then, let me tell you that you will never find anything to suit you. You are inflated with your ability, your importance, and fail to see the small things at your feet and within your reach that if put together will aggregate the very big thing you want.

You aim at the moon and feel bad because you do not hit it. While your aim may be perfectly good and correct, the object may be too far off for you to hit, or else you must work yourself within reach of it and then you will hit it.

Small beginnings have made every great man on earth. Out of the huts and squalid cabins of the world have issued men who have conquered the world of arms and commerce.

You have the advantage of them from an educational point of view, and think you must be saddled upon a fiery horse before you know whether you can ride a steady going one.

The millionaire was not a millionaire when he started, he was an obscure clerk in a dry goods store working for wages that you scorn. Reduce your size to something near the right one and you will see things differently and take what you can get cheerfully, biding your time to reach higher. Let your hat fit your head.

DON’T GET DISCOURAGED

One of the greatest causes for failure in life is discouragement. It seems to be an element in the life of every man to be up one day and down the next.

When a man gets up it is possible for him to stay up by hard work and persistence, but if he permits himself to go down below his balance he may consider himself altogether down-and-out.

Failure does not mean that you will not succeed, because struggle as we may we must meet failure and look it squarely in the face.

But be not afraid of it, take hold of it by the throat and compel it to work to your advantage.

The lessons learned during the struggle toward success, and the ups and downs of the road are valuable and stand for experience. When a driver has gone over a hard road once, he knows the rocky portions and can avoid them when going over it again.

It is human to make mistakes. In fact, it is a maxim: “It is human to err.”

Knowing this to be inevitable, why repine, or be discouraged?

Follow the example of the small child who falls and picks himself up over and over again. By and by, he can walk without falling down.

Remember this: Every dark cloud has a silver lining. You see the dark side, but if you make your way around to the other side you will see the sun shining.

Much of the discouragement is caused by undertaking more than we can accomplish. If that is the case, then by leaving off a little here and there we shall soon reduce our enterprise to a success that we can handle.

DON’T BE PREJUDICED

We sometimes dislike a man, or hate him, which is the same thing, because he possesses certain peculiarities of person or conduct which are different from ours, or has ideas that are different from those we favor.

The man may be a perfect stranger to us, and we may know nothing about his environments or conditions under which he lives, or the reasons why he differs from us—we hate him all the same and take the other side of the street rather than meet him face to face.

If we were to look into ourselves we might believe that this man we dislike, has many reasons for not liking us.

We show prejudice when we judge any man. “Judge not, lest ye be judged,” says Christ. You are not the judge of any man’s conduct, and to judge him entails slander, backbiting, and conspiracies to his undoing.

You throw mud at another man. Why? Is it not because you have some spots yourself and want to draw attention away from them?

You are afraid that if you boost the other man up you will lower yourself. Hence you unload upon him some of your objectionable qualities to lighten your load.

Every man who does this admits that the other man is better than he, and hopes by adding his faults to that other man, to reduce the level to somewhere near a balance. But experience demonstrates the contrary.

Even if a man should be as bad as you say he is, it is not your business to correct him. You can not extract the fangs of a rattlesnake by abusing him.

Look out for your own destinies and leave the judgment of your fellow man to the judgment seat of God, where it belongs.

DON’T BE SMALL MINDED

A broad, liberal-minded man is beloved by all, but a narrow, small minded man is an object of dislike.

You do not have to squander money to be considered broad minded, or be extravagant in your life and home. A man of that sort is drawing upon his future to use up in the present, and there is no greater folly than this.

In all your dealings with your fellow men, you must exhibit that trait of open mindedness that will draw men to you.

If you stick at trifles and refuse to concede a point to another he will avoid you in future dealings.

“Grab” is a good game, you say. Very well, “you shall not grab anything belonging to me,” and everybody says the same thing. So it will come to pass by and by that there will be nothing for you to grab.

Generosity within a man’s means is always a noble trait, and meets with the approbation of every man. But you must be wise in your generosity and not run into vain glory, or phariseeism—which is fancying that you are better than other men because you squander money. Others don’t think so, they call you “fool” behind your back.

A close-fisted, penurious man, a driver of hard bargains, is always a small man, and everybody is on the look out for a chance to beat him at his own game, and they generally do.

There are small men who will sell you large eggs by the pound, and small ones by the dozen. People find that out and go somewhere else to do their marketing.

In every hill of potatoes, there are some small ones—they did not grow with the others, and they are also cheaper than the others. In the human hill, the small men do not grow like the large ones, hence they are cheaper.

Do not be a small potato, be a large one and sell for more.

DON’T WASTE TIME

Time is not a thing to be wasted, for it is given you for the purpose of working out your destiny.

Time does not belong to you, it is a loan and sometime, perhaps before you are ready, the loan will be called in.

It is said that “Time is Money.” This is not to be understood as meaning dollars and cents, but as something valuable to you. A drink of water is not cash money, but it is valuable to a thirsty man.

The proverb “Waste not, want not,” is as applicable to time as it is to bread and meat, clothing or money.

Yet we are wasting time when we stick at trifles, embark in trivial things, or are connected with something not worth the trouble of exploiting.

A man who wastes his time soon acquires a reputation for being good for little else than small things, a trifling character, and his wages or salary is gauged upon his dawdling peculiarities.

Every man is considered as large as the things he does and no larger, and the time he steals—yes, steals from himself, he will try to steal from others.

It is not necessary to keep in constant motion, or always at work to save time, but idle things, trifling matters, idle words and silly things are a mere waste of time.

You must prepare for the time of need, the time of trouble, and generally look ahead of you, and you can do this only by not wasting your present time of action.

There will come a period when time shall be no more; when you will look back and sigh over wasted moments.

Take time to be cheerful, for amusement, for pleasure, of course. Such things are good for the soul and body, and the time is not wasted when they are reasonable and decent.

DON’T DECEIVE YOURSELF

The man who shuts his eyes deliberately and walks toward a deep hole into which he falls, is a fool and does not deserve sympathy or help.

But the man who deliberately deceives himself and uses false arguments to bolster up some bad habit, or shady dealing with his fellow men, is working dead against his conscience, and drifting down deep in the human scale. He is an object of contempt.

You get the better of a man by some trick and say to yourself: “Oh, he would have done the same thing to me.”

So you measure yourself by others? This is not an assertion of manhood, it is a slavish subjection to others mentally.

When a man goes wrong, or commits a wrong act, and deceives himself into the belief that he was right, he commits moral suicide, just the same as if he killed himself.

There is another point of view to this question: If you could deceive yourself and let it go at that, there might be no harm done except to your own self-respect, but in deceiving yourself you deceive others into the belief that you are honest and square. Whereas, you are a hypocrite.

Others will find you out very soon, and then you may as well shut up shop, for all the business and trust you will get.

A man who is square with himself will be true to everybody else. This makes for character, and character is all a man has on this earth; once lost it can never be regained. You see, there are too many people on earth to deal with. You are not the only one, and so your disappearance will not make even a small ripple.

Be a man among other men, and be true to yourself, for so you will gain the respect and good will of all.

DON’T HIDE YOUR FAULTS

Confession is good for the soul.

This does not mean that you are to go about and tell everybody what a bad man you are. If you do that, they will soon begin to believe you and keep away from you.

Where there is smoke there is always some kind of a fire.

When you are wrong, say so without hesitation. Nobody is perfect, and all men have their faults.

In the business world every man wants to know every other man, then it will be safe to do business with him. But you can not know another without knowing his faults.

Concealment of one’s frailties is dangerous, and leads to harm if you are found out, and you are always found out. You are a suspicious character, and sometimes suspicions are “as strong as proofs of Holy Writ.”

You chew cloves to hide the fact that you have taken a drink. Why do you not say that you take a drink occasionally if that is the fact, and not try to hide the odor of the drink behind cloves? Nobody is deceived, and you get the reputation of being a steady drinker, which may be far from the truth.

You apply for a job, and you are asked: “Do you drink?” Why not answer bravely: “No, sir, not as a rule. I do take a drink once in a while, but will not do so anymore.” Your probable employer says to himself: “I can trust this man because he does not hide his faults, but confesses them and intends to avoid them.”

It is so with other faults that will weigh against you if concealed and found out.

DON’T BE A PESSIMIST, BE AN OPTIMIST

A pessimist is a man who has a constant grievance against somebody or something.

He is forever standing in his own light, and thinks the whole world has picked him out to be the scapegoat for everything that is bad.

He says: “Everybody and everything is against me and I can not succeed. It’s no use trying.”

Before you give up to despair, friend, bear this in mind:

You say you have not the same opportunities every other man has.

You will not believe that if you stop to think a moment.

The average Colored American has ten times the opportunities his father had, and a hundred times the opportunities his grandfather possessed.

You are one of the average Colored Americans, perhaps. Well then, your grandfather had no opportunities at all. If he had one, he was not permitted to grasp it. Your father had more opportunities than his father, but opportunities were just beginning to show themselves.

You live in a far advanced age when the very air is full of opportunities, and yet you think you have none.

The reason why you are a pessimist is because you want to be. You think it is too much trouble to reach out and take the opportunities offered you, sometimes even forced upon you.

Instead of being a pessimist you ought to laugh and thank God that the bright side of life is always turned toward you, and you can see it by merely turning your eyes in its direction.

Keep your eyes open; laugh and the world will laugh with you; weep, and you weep alone.

DON’T BE A COWARD

It is cowardly to “dare” do a wrong thing when the right course would take real moral courage. It is cowardly to “dare” do a foolish thing to avoid being laughed at by “the other fellows.”

It is cowardly, and vulgar as well, for a girl to let herself be drawn into a silly flirtation, a course that cheapens her own womanly nature and makes her the toy of the moment, just because “the other girls do it.”

It is cowardly for a grocer to give short weight, put sand in his sugar or sell cheap substitutes for pure food, just because his competitors do.

It is cowardly for a lawyer, merchant or other business man to indulge in sharp practices because others in the same line of business have set the example.

It is cowardly for a woman to try to dress more extravagantly than her purse will permit, to keep pace with her neighbors. And here I am going to say something which will cause some eyes to open wide in astonishment—it is cowardly to deny one’s self or one’s family the reasonable comforts of life when they can be afforded. Some do go to this extreme just from the love of being considered “prudent.”