South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1922-08-13
- 81 srRsCRIPTIoN.
AUGUST I3, 1922


IS ALL VANITY?
why work so hard? There is always some one
s5'o 20 Jake your place so what will It matter
hundred years from now? No one Is so good that
DE cannot 5e replaced"
How often has this been handed 10 you as
philosophy OF life and often have you. per-
haps. given the biz Of wisdom 20 some man
whose hobby or occupation or profession seemed
20 chain him too closely to the treadmiu OF things?
You knew that it true when you issued your
warming TO that foolish friend who seemed inspired
by The idea that when he quit his job the whole
works would be smashed and no other be able
TO keep it going
You wonder. perhaps. why men who have.
through their strict attention to business or by
paths beet known to themselves amassed large
sized fortune insist keeping the job work
ing harder perhaps than any In their employ,
never letting so OF the reins for single moment
You have probably told yourself that when you
rake your particular pile reached the mark that
seems safety and oppulence to you, that you will
enjoy life and not be so foolish these greedy
old fellows who keep plugging along.
or course your Job is different. You have fitted
Yourself for IT, You have a particular talent and
special genius that is all yours and while if you
should quit some one else might be found, it
would not be the Job and the work would
suffer.
You right both times
The only job in the world which cannot be re-
placed is the one you hold. The job which every
other man has can always be hlled perhaps to ad-
tantage by some who would pu- pep
and new blood into it:
When you stop to think about it, that is really
.hc wonderful thing about life
Looking around YOU you realize that every other
man in the world will some day PASS on and that
his shoes must inevitably be ared least
placed by some other.
No human bens is ever able to even imagine
this world without himself being a part Of it. No
man ever had the power or viii have the power to
imagine a world Of which he IS not a part.
1t IS that men very carefully plan for the
disposition of their property when they shall
longer need property and try by various legal
quirSs to extend their influence and their opinions
and whims and their fances for the years that
TO come after they are gone.
But even in writing those wills they subcon-
scously and inevitably picture themselves stand
ms over the things OF this world still ruling from
some mystic realm still much a part of things
as though they were in the flesh.
That Inability of men TO imagine a world with
out them is the source of that fine inspiration
which prompts men of success and of
1nedIocrity TO believe that they are Indispensable
That is the spirit which keeps men going and
which holds them to their interests in life and in
things and which, finally. makes progress possible.
OF course that other man your boyhood friend
perhaps is foolish. If he looked in the glass he
would ind the gray hairs and ought to know that
IS IS time for him 90 slac5en up and take things
easier. His boy would probably do better with the
business anyway But not you. II you slipped.
The cors Of the machinery would smoothly.
The magazine writer's call It vanity. Perhaps 1t
u.s. Possibly 1t is vanity that keeps at their
Jobs ard perhaps YOU viii agree with Fannie Hurst
when She wrote i'm the current McCaus Magazine:
There is something incurably vain and person
allv hopeful about a man. lie acts either though
ne had privately discovered the fountain OF eternal
youth or as though no mirrors in existence.
Apparently niddle-aged men never try on the
trousers of ten years before. That their grace has
departed as surely as their wives never seems to
occur 10 them"
If that be vanity. what a really fine thing it IS.
For il is part and parcel Of this spirit which dOmi
mates the souls of men, which directs their work
ana their enterprises which shuts the door OF i'm
1gratou 10 the gloomy picture of this old world
without Them which permits them TO deny the In
evi.able facts in their own cases. although seeing
Them So plainly in the affairs OF others
30 man IS indispensable. His job can always be
gued again. Take this the truth and find
Che story Of progress.
Your own job is the one exception. Your place
cannot be allied by others. You needed and
essential Take this as true. for unless
thar be ,rue 10 you and the big fact in your life
.ou have already ceased 20 live.