The Ocala banner., 1922-05-19
YOUR THREE HUNDRED YEARS
OF LIFE

Occasionally, in seeking firm foun-
dation for building something in this
unstable morass of life, one of us
strikes a rockbottom idea-new some
times, often rediscovery, but not less
remarkable than the new.
You may thank F. N. Menafee, a
Michigan civil engineer, for doing just
this and passing his discovery along
to us, to be passed along to you. His
is an idea that will help buyers buy,
statesmen sell, producers produce, dis
tributors distribute, bankers bank,
and human beings get along better
than they have done heretofore. Like
all helpful ideas it is simple, and this
is it:
Life is not a question of how long
you live, but how much you live
On his deathbed, CECIL Rhodes, Gre
ator of an empire, a man who had
lived, in comparatively short life,
more fully and fruitfully than most
men live in twice his years, bemoaned
the fact that he must leave the world
with so little done of what he wanted
to accomplish.
Well, if Rhodes could start life now,
under modern conditions, and with
the conveniences, equipment and in
ventions that have come into being
since his death, he could, in the same
number of years, accomplish ten, per-
haps twenty, times as much as he did
accomplish while he lived. And he
would. He was that kind. And were
it possible for Rhodes to begin life
fifty years from now, improvements
pending in. our present ways and
means of living probably would enable
him to beat that several fold.
The human animals tendency is
ever toward quicker and easier ways
of doing things. That is a wonderful
thought to live by. No matter who
you are or what you make or sell or
buy, whether it be soap, soup, sewing
machines, or personal service, you
must buy or sell, primarily, not the
product itself, but the idea that the
use of the product will make life
richer, more agreeable.
You don't buy soap; you buy clean
liness. You don't buy railroad tick
cts; you buy speed, safety, and COM
fort in getting some place. You don't
buy stocks and bonds; you buy as
sured income. The list is unending.
Apply the idea to your own affairs
to suit yourself 1t will help you
whether you buy or sell these things.
1t will help you live.
THE timesaving element says
Menefee, should also be considered
in other ways than the one referred
to. The age-old question, whether a
man can honestly earn million in a
lifetime, must be attacked from an
entirely different angle today compar-
ed with fifty years ago. If he could
them he certainly could now; if he
couldn't then, he probably could now.
for today we have men who may IL,
five hundred years of experience in
accomplishments. as compared with
the man of fifty or seventy-five years
ago. Industrial leaders of today will
talk with some one in
Europe by telephone or cable and con-
clude transaction in a few moments
that would have been accomplished
only two or three times in a lifetime
in less modern times.
And for the average individual. as
suming he is doing something-work-
ing or playing during his waking
hours-and assuming that he puts
the time which engineers save him to
some use, work or play, there is in the
aggregate large increase in the
amount of impressions upon his
senses: more living, more life; in fact.
we live longer"
We don't get the lamp, fill and clean
it, and hunt match to light it with;
We turn a switch. We don't chop
wood and start rhetkitchen range;
we light the gas. We don't lug water
from the we'll; we twist the tap. We |
don't write letter or take a long Jour I
ney in a stagecoach; we telephone.
We don't begin to realize how many
Iifetimes have been crowded into
given number of years for us by the
fast train, the telephone, telegraph.
automobile. truck, tractor, elevator,
and all that myriad of household. of
ice, factory, and farm appliances that