The Washington herald., 1916-08-27
Our Unworked Assets.
by oRIsoN SWEET MARDEN,


. Said the great psychologist, Prot. William
James, Zach OF us has resources of which he
does not dream"
It has been long journey up through the
ages from the bTtIte to the man, and on the way
up we have developed such marvellous powers
and resources as our primitive ancestors never
dreamed Of
Civilized man has travelled far the life
path from the mere animal to his present high
state OF development, but he is still farther away
from his ultimate destination than be is from
the crude savage of his earlier stages.
Finding Our resources, calling out the larger
possible man in US should be the great object of
life.
Whether life shall be success or a failure
depends very largely upon the call we make on
our resources, the extent to which we develop all
our possibilities
The other day, l was trying to encourage a
young man who had the opportunity to start
out for himself and not to settle down in
row groove to work for somebody else all his
life. Il am afraid" he said, 81 haven't the cour-
age to take chances. l have always worked for
somebody else. l have never made a program
for myself; never started anything my own
responsibility l don't dare to make the attempt
lest l fail"
That young man will never get hold of half
of his resources because he is afraid to trust him
self. We don't know what we can do until we
try, and unused faculties never grow or
strengthen.
Grow or Go" is the very suggestive motto
hanging in conspicuous place in the New York
office of the president of one of our largest
insurance companies. Nature has written this
same motto in invisible characters upon the fore
NJ haipo
gress or decline, shrivel up, atrophy, is written
on every living organism.
Man becomes greater in proportion as he
learns to know himself and his faculty." said
Schelling. The more highly we cultivate all our
faculties, the more deeply we draw upon our
resources, the wider grows our vision. Life be-
comes perpetual progress.
Really successful people, men and women who
are trying to make the most of their lives, never
arrive" They are always on the road because
their goal is always recedng as they grow larger,
broader and more efficient. They only stop of
at way stations to unpack few things which
they no longer need, impedmenta which hampers
them, and then they resume their journey This
is the way all along the life path. Only those
who cease growing stop off and locate perma-
nenty.
People who think they have "arrved" do not
are beginning to deteriorate to 60 backward
On every hand we see even young men and
young women stopping off permanently at way
stations, standing still mentally making no pro-
gress toward further self-discovery. They have
ceased to grow; they are in a rut, cursed with
arrested development because when they left
school or. college they dropped the development
Of their resources; they gave up the self-im-
provement, the self-cultivation habit.
There is only one way to get at your re-
sources, to increase your growth and your power,
and that is by continually improving yourself
somewhere increasing your intelligence by closer
and keener observation, the constant study of
men and things, the broadening of your mental
and spiritual outlook, the getting away from self
and the charging of your sphere of service and
helpfulness.
Unless you feel yourself growing every day;
unless today finds you little farther on than
yesterday; unless you feel your mentality pushing
out your horizon little farther; unless you have
larger and frmer mental and spiritual grasp
Of the meaning of life and the universal scheme
OF things, you are not the road to success
The road to real success is ever onward, ever
upward. There is nothing stationary about it.
The successful life is progress on constantly
ascending path.