The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1924-12-21

the city was late and while they were
slightly delayed, the chairman enter
tanned the six hundred persons Dy gam
| ing from them some very interesting
| information. He asked that every man
present stand whose first choice OF
| vocation proved to be the wrong one.
Please bear in mind that the audience
was not composed of people VINO drop
| into meetings. Every man there was
successful business man, member
| of one of the clubs. Out OF the SIX
hundred, four hundred and eleven men
stood. Think of it! Over four hundred
out of six hundred. 1t was shown by
further voting that many OF the men
had changed their vacations as many
as four or five times.
In this series of articles you will be
given a vocational system based on
years OF experience.
In selecting a vocation one should
follow some definite and concrete sys-
tenn. Such a system can best be fol-
lowed as one would follow a map in
taking q cross country journey in a
car.
Drawing The Map
| Take your pencil and draw a map
that will resemble a tree with three
limbs running out in three different
directions. Name the. limb on the right
| art, the one in the middle business and
the left one mechanics. Now you have
the first section of your vocational
map.
At the root of the tree-the start
ing point-mark A and B where the
single line representing the body of
the tree goes off into the art, bust
ness and mechanics branches.
RENDER A is the starting point. With
pencil in hand, you are to travel to Is
marking the map as you proceed. AT
B you have your first vocational prob
lem. At this point you are to decide
which of three roads to journey.
Are you more artistic than COM
mercal? Are you more commercial than
mechanical? After all these are not very
hard questions if you will begin to
analyze yourself and your problem. You
may have some artistic traits and some
that are mechanical, and yet be more
commercial. Then take the road marked
business. The other two will be
left behind as you travel the business
section of the map, to become side
lights to your personality.
List Your Traits
Take a large piece of paper and
from three columns. At the head of
one, write the word art. Under this
heading every reason you can think of
for being artistic should be listed. Many
traits belong to this column. Language,
expression, love of things beautiful, love
of music, painting, dancing, ETC., even
though you may not be able to do these
things. If you are highly sensitive and
emotional (being nervous is differently
if you are fond of the beauties of ma
ture, mountains, lakes, sunsets, ETC.,
these are, in part, artistic traits. AS a
rule artists are temperamental, some of
them have the type of imagination that
takes the form of day-dreaming, and
all true artists feel deeply the parts
they enter into. Make your list as long
as possible and study it.
In the business column write all the
traits you have that relate to bust
ness. If you like to enter into COM
petition, this is a business trait even
though you may belong to some other
vocational road, but it should be listed
in this column. If you like to trade,
buy and sell, convince people on mat
tiers pertaining to financial gain, these
are business traits. If you enjoy hand
ling and directing men, getting things
done, if you like to shoulder responsible
ity, these too belong here, even though
the artist or mechanic may enjoy the
do not attempt to figure how much
profit the audience will bring the man
ager, you may still have a commercial
mind, but if this is your habit, it is
certainly a business trait, A typical