Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1915-04-09

falre' spirit-that thing that makes
people imagine that things will take
care of themselves
Nature, in her adherence of a va
cuum, supplies another quality to take
the place of energy. 1t is called by
and amiable; others name it content
mont and still others say it is a be-
ilet In fate, or faith in Providence.
What Laziness Is
Nonsense! Lack of energy is none
OF these euphonious things,
Lack of energy is sheer, stupid
iaziness And laziness may manifest
itself in a mental inertia that let's
Things take care of themselves, or
II may be an actual physical inability
TO turn itself to honest toll But
lack of energy works itself out to the
same all through life. 1t presup-
poses, ii postulates defeat 1t lets
the tide of life carry you where 1t
happens to be going.
The current of events will not stop
and direct itself out of its path for
an individual. 1t eddies along or
whirls forward or sluggishly proceeds
where the great scheme of things
carries it. And the individual who
gets into the eddying whirlpool is
sucked down to death as surely as the
one who drifts into backwater per-
lshes OF staSnaUon, and the one who
IS swept out to an uncharted sea is
wrecked by breakers or reefs or ram
med by passing vessels or driven dere-
lict in the living death of rudderless
impotence.
When the tide, after a great storm,
brings fiotsam and jetsam up on the
beach, are not the things flung on the
sands by the incoming and receding
waves pathetic? But is there not a
certain feeling of scorn for the wreck
age of the storm mingled with pity
for the helpless accumulation at your
feet?
Now how can an individual stupidity
put himself in the way of being just
such tiotsam and jetsam of the storm
of life?
No undirected ship can make har-
Dor except by accident. No undirected
life can find itself in a safe port
Drifting carries us over the rocks
or upon uncharted seas. And it all
starts innocently enough.
Dreaming is such a comforting and
seemingly innocent occupation. one
can hardly see where it passes the
hounds of safe pleasure and leads to
idle drifting.
Do you lie in bed in the morning
and imagine the clever things you
will say-the remarkable way YOU
Will uO you NOGh-Jne great energy
and invention you will bring to your
tasks that day? And then do you al
most imagine you have done your
duty by yourself and accomplished a
days work, because YOU have
dreamed about it? Or do you plan
actively one or two things YOU will
do before set of sun, fling off the
covers of sloth and fairly whrl up to
be doing?
On which principle do you build
your days-"fancies and that might
be- or facts that are?"
Don't dream and drift. Instead
think and act. Choose your way i'm
life. The first step away from the
thraldom of dreaming and drifting is
TO appreciate the JOY of activity.
There is no happiness in a life that
is not constructing something. Make
yourself very sure of that. Act. Do.
Don't be carried anywhere by the
stream of life. But get out into the
current of action and direct your bark,
You will find zest in the mere foy
of being factor in deeds And if the
time ever comes when you can afford
to drift--you won't want to. There
/ is one luxury in life is the active pleas.
ure of MAKING YOUR DREAMS
ICOME TRUE!