The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-01-11
DOROTHY DIX TALKS
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer.
The Personal Equation.

Did you ever consider that the thing
that determines your fate in life is
your own character?
1t is not luck. 1t is not opportunity.
1t is net pull. 1t is not chance. 1t is
what you, yourself, are. Il myself am
heaven and hell" declared old Omar
in his wisdom. He might also have
added, II, myself, am happiness or
misery, success or failure, riches or
poverty, for we make the beds we lie
upon. With our own hands we shape
our destiny, and write our price tags"
This is hard saying and one that
very few of us have the courage to
lface. 1t is SO much pleasanter to
blame all of our misfortunes on some
malignant, mysterious evil influence
that has hoodooed our every effort, and
| to attribute the prosperity of others
| to their undeserved good fortune in
| being the darlings of the gods, but
| there is nothing to this theory except
a solace to our vanity. In its last
analysis, success or failure comes back
| to that intangible quality in the indio
| vidual that makes him, or her, a
winner or a loser in the game of life.
| We see this illustrated in a million
ways all about us every day. Give a
! bit of meat and a few vegetables to
| two cooks. One of them will make of
the raw materials ragout over which
an epicure will smack his lips in
| ecstasy. The other will concoct a pale
tasteless stew, without flavor or nour-
| ishment, from which even a hungry
| dog will turn in disgust.
| On the outskirts of every village you
| will see rows of cheap little houses.
built in job lots by some contractor,
that are as alike as peas in a pod.
Some of these houses will have grimy
and dingy windows, with broken papes
of glass stuffed with fluttering rags
and door yards filled with empty tin
cans and rubbish. Others of the cot
| tages will have shining windows with
| crisp white curtains, and the yards will
| be abloom with flowers, and the house
| smothered in vines, and you do not
need to be told that out of the same
| conditions and with the same pay
envelope. the wife Of one workman
| has made a bright, tidy. cheerful,
| thrifty home and the wife of the other
workman is maintaining the kind of
| a shack that sends husbands to the
saloon and children to the street.
We have seen a half dozen men
go bankrupt at the little grocery
around the corner. Then another man
came and out of that same little gro
| Gerry made a fortune.
| Every day of the week there are
| thousands of city boys leaving their
homes to go to strange places to seek
| their fortunes because they believe
| there is no opportunity for them in
New York or Boston, or Chicago, or
wherever they live. and at the same
| moment there are thousands of coun-
| try boys coming into these same cities
| to find their fortunes, and in each of
| these cases the boy succeeds or fails
| according to what is in him and with
| out reference to the place.
| L frequently visit two families, both
of which are blessed with health.
! beautiful children, husbands and wives
who are good kind people, and with
an abundance of this worlds goods
| to supply every comfort and luxury.
| One of these homes is ideally happy,
| a place of peace, rest, love and ten
derness. The other is a place of dis
cord, quarrels, strife, bitterness, tears.
| discomfort and misery. Yet both of
| these couples have the same materials
| for happiness to work with.
| 1t all comes back to the personal
equation. It is we ourselves who de-
termine our fate. We reap as we
have sown- We take out of life what
| we put into it.
No other thought in the world is
so full of optimism as this. because it
| opens every door of opportunity to
US. instead of making us the helpless
prisoners of misfortune. No need for
any girl or boy to lament that they
have no chance of success. Their
chance lies right within themselves.
They can find their fortune just as
surely within their own block, or on
their own farm. they could find
it at the ends of the earth.
/ 1 once asked a very successful man
| what profession or business boy
| whom L was much interested in should
go into as his career. The great man
/ replied:
at does not make a particle OF
difference what line of work the boy
chooses. 1t all depends upon the boy
himself. Nor does it make any differ
ence where the boy starts. There are
fortunes to be made in every occupa-
ton under the sun, and a boy can
succeed at Squeedunk. or in New
York, or London if he has the ability
and the pluck, and if he hasn't, he
will fail at whatever he goes into and
in any place.
In the end we get out of life. bust
ness, friendship and love what we put
into it. It's the personal equation
J that settles everything.
A~~, A