The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1902-01-16
THE ANNUAL STOCK-TAKING.
The Time to Face Your Actual Situa-
ton, Mental, Moral and Material.
Pittsburg Gazette.

Pittsburg Gazette.
While the persistent disposition of
the American is to extract humor from
every subject, no matter how serious
it's nature may be, we come in recent
years to regard the sober admoni-
tions pertinent to the New Year as so
many jokes against which we hurl
our shafts of wit. But the man or
woman who lets the season 90 by
without some mental and moral
stock-taking is hardly possessed of
the qualities of character that find
useful place in the task of helping
the world along to better civiliza-
ton. New Year PROSECUTIONS" that
are made only to be broken may enlist
our humor, but the serious and earn
est review of a years accomplish
ments and the counting up of ones
individual losses and gains are by far
too important duties to be driven
away from by pointed paragraph or
humorist's sheer. Nor is there any
need for morbid brooding and useless
signing over what the old year con-
tains The healthiest exercise for
mind at this time should be learning
lessons for our future guidance. The
man who never makes a mistake is
not of much account in this world.
1t is the men, who, having made mis-
takes, learn from them q better way
of living thereafter, who are building
our cities, digging our canals, direct
ing our State affairs, writing our
| books, and singing our sweet and
Hottest songs. If New Year reflec-
tions run altogether in the direction
of bemoaning the losses and mistakes
of the closing year, the process had
| better be left off and the regulation
of our lives left entirely TO circum-
stances or to chance inspiration.
There is no weakness or mere senti-
mentalism in the candid query put
by every rational individual to HIM
SELF or herself at least once year:
Where do | stand? What am l gain
ing or losing of the world of which
form part? BY the divisions and
subdivisions of our calendar there is
a period when we can put definite
pause upon the swift passing OF the
days, and say, here the old ends and
new begins. 1t is this period into
which we come this week and the man
who uses it sansibly to cast up a
rigid and impartial account with him.
self is going to be much more use
full and valuable member of society
for the year to come than he who
"resolves and re-resolves only to
| nj l.
ness.
If we have lot of old and bad &C
counts on hand in the shape of narrow
prejudice or old musty theories that
have been tried and found failures,
the best thing to do is to credit them
to the profit and loss'' sheet and let
it 90 at that. We should lose them
and at the same profit by what thei,
very failures teach us. The New
Year is an excellent time for people
to be what they so rarely have the
courage to attempt-absolute hon
est with themselves. Never mind
about the mistakes and the losses anG
the little humiliations that this pro
cess will entail. Face the situation
mental, material. in which you actual
ly find yourself for the sole purpose
of being helped for the year to come
and you will be astonished at the i'm
pulse and uplift you will get from
the process. Life is hard enough
problem at best, but it i. almost in
tolerable and infinitely less useful t.
the men and women who are neve
wise enough to be honest with thei
own experiences.