The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1916-09-06
If You Want to Do Thing Very Much

If you dominated by a resolution that
recognizes no defeat, neither men nor demons
can keep you back If you yesrn for an educa-
ton, if you are hungry for knowledge, no mat
ter how hard confined your lot in life may
be you will manage somehow to get at the books
you want and to find time to read them. If
you long for selfculture, you will manage some
how to snatch the opportunity for it in the very
teeth of your daily duties. If you have an artis-
tic soul, an artists longing for beauty. you will
contrive somehow to see beautiful pictures
statuary scenery, to post yourself works of
art; you will let opportunity pass for getting
little beauty into your life 1t is lack OF
will, of determination, OF overwhelming de-
sire rather than lack OF opportunity that is
usually to blame for most of the unfortunate
conditions deplore.
We the architects of our own lives Every
human being is master of his destiny. Each is
his own schoolmaster and he must train himself
every day OF his life in all of the qualities that
make for efficiency, for happiness, for nobility
and completeness OF character. He must train
himself father would train his son.
There is human being that cannot, if he
wills it, turn about face and walk in the opposite
direction. 1t is just a question of will power,
of right self-training, of forming new habit
to drive out the old repeating the reverse until
brain path for the new thought, the new act
has been formed
How often we hear people with disagreeable
dispositions and unhappy temperaments say they
were born that way and their whole lives have
been spoiled by their inherited fault But how
shall account for the instantaneous transfer
nation of character which often takes place after
a tragic occurrence-the making and carrying out
of a resolution to stop drinking, to quit an
evil life, the sudden determination to break
up ones lazy, indoent negative habits? How
shall we account for the sudden reversal of the
character of young who has been regarded
as a good-for-nothing all his life? Accident, a
great crisis in life, the death of dear ones, the
loss of property, railroad wreck, or shipwrecE,
the sudden facing death in FIRE, religious re-
vivalS, discovery of oneself or of the real i'm
port of life have resulted in the reversal Of many
lfe-all of these instances are proofs that it
is not impossible to reverse thinking and
our habits and form character new dis
position even late in life.
The trouble with many of US is that we
do not yearn for the things we think we want
with that intense longing which is willing to make
sacrifices to acquire them We do not long for
them with the earnestness that produces the
force to tunnel mountains and bridge oceans in
order to reach its goal. We wish simply, softly,
we do not back up the wish with vigorous action,
one becomes opportunity blind. Everywhere we
we see sidetracked wrecks, people who have
waited so long that they have lost the power
to act, have become blind to the chance and
powerless to grasp it.
Opportunity's doors have been swung wide
open by the sheer force of will, logged determi-
nation. How many people have opened the door
of splendid chance by simply pushing ahead
when others have turned back. The opportunity
is in the man. 1t is in the quick brain, in the
habit of mind that decides things vigorously and
without regret in the quality called pluck" in
the virtue of persistent, determined effort.
Make up your mind that whatever needs to
be done in this world be done, will be done,
by somebody. If you lack the ability or the grit
or the determination to do it, there is probably
some one not very far from you who can and
will do it. You may not be able to find way,
but there is some not very far from you
who will find way and who will make moral
muscle in the doing of it, and place for him
self in the world by the force of his will
If we want to do thing very much we will
manage somehow to find way to do it.
Copyright, lsl6l