Richmond times-dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1914-current, 1916-05-21
Your Thoughts
Do Yau Find They Are Wanderers
or Workers.?
ny ADA PATTERSON

Are your thoughts workers or wan
derers?
Are they honest. industrious labor
ers or idle loitercrs alpng the highway
Of life, tramps that know not nor care
where they go?
DO they work steadily and earnestly.
with dignity. subricty and effect. or do
they lose their force by devious wau-
dcrinSs and time by aimless dawdlings?
The chief difference between the men
YOU Know is In the way they think.
That man who opens his desk with II
determined bang. opens his mail with
an air OF concentration and begins his
days work as the engineer starts his
engin. down the track. is thinking in
the right way. The one whose desk
Is beside his and who opens his desk
with a yawn. who lights a cigarette
before he opens his first letter. who
leers at the girl who sits at the type
writing machine. and iiinys an ideal
jest at the office boy. Is thinking in
the wrong way. His thought engine
VIII run off the track and overturn
In ditch before the day is spent. a
good many keys have been offered to
open the door of success. y charming
personality. an engaging address, the
knowledge OF human nature and the
aoility to apply that knowledge, a
practical education, have all been Of
fered, but none Of these turns the lock
so quickly as does systematic thinking.
thought is the only miracle worker
OF modern life. The magic OF an idea
rs the only witchcraft of latter DAYS
me highest building In the world was
punt because less than forty years ago
man had an idea that he followed as
devotedly AZ the wise men of old fol-
lowed the star that led them to the
birthplace of the Christ. a tunnel was
Duiit through what had been termed
the river of the lost hope, united the
largest city In the world with the
greatest continent. because man had
an idea and did not dismiss IL, hut
thought OF ii Systematically every day
y great mail-order business that is a
city within city, that has its own
raiiroad ana its own post office. orig
mated in a street car conductors writ
ING a letter FOR watch, and his COM
radcs requesting him to do the same
Tor them. lie thought about the incl
ueht, as the clerk who open,d his
desk with bang and went at his
mai az though he were starting an
engine down the track He thought Of
IL every day. not ftfully, and wish fully.
~, iong and consecutively and as n
oui!der erects skyscrapcr in time
ihueeo' ne did scrape the sky of finance
nov DO you think Do your thoughts
drllt IN and out of your mind in aim
lashion as stray visitors drift
M ousm 'ne mouse In informal calls?
70 your thoughts burst upward as
water sprouts from the nozzle of
kettle and splashes somewhere and
arc gone! DO they efterYesce in much
talk, highly charged waters blowing
out the cork Of silence?
Or 40 they act as sober soldiers on
a long march? "'
GU know. and know. persons whose
thoughts ought to be arrested for
asrahcF' as surely as any tramp who
shores in the sun ""o
Every successful career hos st,r,ad
upward at that point at which ira
. began the habit Of systc,natir
thinking. ''''
never waste your thoughts Guard
'nein as an engineer the fuel OF his
eHsihe' Be more careful OF them than
me CONS III your pocket. For of