Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1921-10-26
4 WILL"

This fall the doors of countless
colleges and technical schools all
over this country and Canada have
opened their doors to hundreds of
thousands of young fellows who are
fortunate enough to be able to afford
the time and the money to secure
the training that will help them in
their fight for success.
On the other hand, in countless
offices, stores, and factories are hun
dreds of thousands of people just as
ambitious-more eager for success,
perhaps, for they have leaned to rea-
lie what success really means. They
have seen in their own experience the
rewards that in business life go to
the few and are Withheld from the
many.
So there is race on between the
workers and the students. The win
ners will be those who can stand
forth in the next five or more years,
equipped with the greatest degree of
real training and efficiency. Without
careful consideration one might
Judge that those entering the schools
are the fortunate ones; that after
their. training is completed, they will
outdistance those who must remain
at their everyday tasks. But this is
not exactly true; the worker has an
almost equal opportunity, if he will
but realize that he is in a race and re-
solve not to be left behind.
The worker must overcome Obsta-
cles in his way, it is true, but over
coming obstacles is the quickest and
surest path to power, since power is
the product of practice, and practice
is absolutely necessary to the attain
ment of skill in any form of activity.
The more we do things the better
and quicker we can do them.
Viewing an obstacle thus it is not
a handicap but an advantage, in that
it supplies the motive to practice, the
urge to work hard to overcome the
obstacle and to become equal to the
average of the race.
Following this urge, the one who
works becomes not equal but greater,
and continually greater still, than the
Gle, he must acquire the priceless
habit of work.
The old epigram Of "Three gene
rations between shirt sleeves and
shirt sleeves" taps law of nature.
| Man must work to live, because his
sole reason for existence is to get
things done. God hasn't cluttered
the globe with humans just to have
them, but to develop them. Develop
ment is the product of exercise, which
is simply another way of saying
work.
Sandaw became the strongest man
in the world, but he was a sickly
child, his parents were afraid he
wouldn't live-and he wanted to. Ev-
man can have what he wants if it is
| within the laws of nature, and if he
wants it hard enough.
Sandow wanted to live hard enough
to do the things necessary to keep
himself alive. He went to work upon
a systematic series of exercises de-
signed to develop the faulty members
of his weak body. We worked away
Hest child in the neighborhood, he
became the strongest man in the
world. And meanwhile, hundreds of
,, thousands of sickly children had Civ
en- up the struggle because they didn't
realize, as Sandow had realized, that
obstacles are things to be overcome
and not things to be overcome by.
So it is that those who start with
the "handicaps" often end with the
laurel wreaths or the silver cups or
the sides of bacon, whatever may be
the prize.
Unfortunately, many of us who
start with the handicaps never finish
at all. People will find us by the
roadside complaining bitterly about
the inequality of life and the hope
lessness of trying to get ahead. We
are not cutters, necessarily; but
and this is important-we are not
thinkers. We have not thought that
a handicap might be a challenge and
not defeat.
In the handicaps of poor health or
early poverty, there are motives to,
self betterment, most powerful and
intense, to those of us who will see
them as things to overcome and not
as things to go down under.
The man who says, 81 must sue
coed! can succeed! will succeed"
will go faster than the one who says,
"Of cours I will do well: look at the
start I have made" And he who
goes fastest goes farthest in the long
run of life.
It was so with Sandow in the ply
steal world.