The Washington herald., 1916-07-26
The Story Of Three thousand Minutes.
BY oRIsoN SWEET MARDEl

ny ohisoN SWEET MARDEN,
When Mr.. II. Gordon Selfrdge, the great
London department store merchant, formerly OF
the Marshall Field company in Chicago, visited
this country recently he told story at the
Filene store, in Boston.
Boiled down, it is simply this--that Mr..
Selfridge has built up his success in business by
getting the most possible out of three thousand
minutes which he figures for the average work
ing week.
He explained how he had attempted to drive
home the story of minutc-value among his own
employees; how he had so enthused his own
children with the desire to make the most of
their daily quota of five hundred minutes that
they would frequently come to him at night time
and enthusiastically explain how they had sue
ceeded in crowdng so much activity into the
single day.
The great majority of people who have
reached middle age have not found life any
thing like what they expected. The mirage of
youth, they will tell you, led them only to
disappoint their hopes. l believe their disappont
ment is largely due to the fact that they never
learned the art of getting the most out OF each
day they went along
The trouble with most of us is that look
forward too far or we look backward. We
don't understand our privileges and avail our
selves OF them as they given US. What won
dertul things we could all accomplish if we
would only fling ourselves with all our might
and main into the passing moment. Here is
the source OF all effectiveness, all efficiency, all
character building, all happiness.
Some day is not the calendar by
and by is not on the calendar. Next week" D."
next year" are not the calendar. "Yester-
day" last week." last year" are not written
there. Today is the only thing that is, or ever
will be on the calendar of time for any of us.
The past has ceased to exist and the future is
not here. We live in perpetual now.
TO finish the moment, to find the journeys
end in every step of the road to live the greatest
number of good hours is wisdom" This is the
only philosophy by which can make life yield
its utmost. To live in the day, not in yester-
day, or in tomorrow is the only way in which
we can attain success and happiness.
No matter how you may have failed in the
past, nor how many defeats you may have suf-
tered. you know that you can, if you choose,
make one single day a success. If you just set
your mind to it, and firmly resolve that YOU
Will, you know you make one day splendid
victory
1t you should make up your mind that for
one day you would not fret or worry that
you would not lose your temper your mental
polse, that whatever happend you would keep
your peace Of mind that you would make every
moment count that you would do nothing in a
sloppy, slovenly, slipshod manner you know
that you could make a tremendous advance upon
the previous day.
If you knew positively that for the living of
one such perfect day; keeping your mind full
OF sunshine, full of the victorious thought the
ethcient thought controlling every word and
every act so that your work should be thorough
painstakng, efhcient-that for fulfilling these
conditions for only one day you would be exempt
thereafter from all of the things that have
troubled you IN the past, all your worries and
cares your poverty, your ailments, your him
ORANGES OF every sort; you know perfectly well
that you not only could, but that YOU would
live such victorious life for one dav.
II you can do this for one day you can do
It Tor two days, and every days triumph will
add to your strength to win out the next day,
Zach succeeding days victory will become easier
and easier, until you have formed the habit of
making lite a success you 60. There is no
other way to make the whole OF life success
out to make each day in turn success
Our cares are all Today, our joys are all Today:
And IN one little word. our life what is it
but-Today?"
Most OF US have sort of indefinite idea that
we have more than day at time; that we are
living all along through the past the present
ana the future But of course this is impossible
we are living only in the passing instant In
that is our destiny. Our success or failure de-
Pends upon what comes to US through the gate
way OF the moment, and that we determine our
selves.
Copyright Is6)