YOU MUST HELP YOURSELF TO SUCCESS

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 120, 6 May 1911, Page 4 (Supplement)

YOU MUST HELP YOURSELF TO SUCCESS

The World May Owe You a Living, but Unless You Go Out and Collect

It You Might as Well Consider It a Bad Debt.

(From the Frisco ‘ Examiner ”)

Every conspicuously successful man —the statesman, the banker, the writer, the painter—is steadily bombarded with appeals for help—not alone financial help but for the help that successful beginners fancy they need in order to put them on the right road.

“I am sure I can write plays,” wrote a young woman to a wolf-known playwright. ‘’You yourself were a struggling tyro once, and I think you can appreciate how I feel. Perhaps some moro successful man helped you with advice and suggestions, introduced you to a manager and spoke a good word for your talent All that I ask is that you do the same for me, for without kelp L feel that iny ability will never prove of any use to me or to the world.”

The playwright replied: “Dear Madam—You are wrong. I helped myself. Unless you are able to do the same thing you haven’t any ability.” It was a’ harsh letter, hut it was really far more helpful than thousands of words «f technical advice, which would have proved moro confusing and discouraging than inspiring to the seeker after aid.

As Mrs. AVileox Ims wisely written, ti’.o world ‘ has troubles enough of its own.” Sometimes a busy man will lake the time and trouble to help another along; but usually the kindness is a mistaken one.

The experience gained from fighting your own battles is worth many times the sum of all the advice and assistance you can receive. In short, it is not until a man must fight not only for himself but for others -must not only pay his own way through a world that trusts nobody, but that of liis wife ami children, that he becomes really sclf-re’iant. And be sure that no one else will rely on a man who docs not * ;-ly on himself.

No organisation in which favouritism prevails can endure. Not only are deserving men. denied their due, but the favourites that are exalted are made worthless bv the very help that they receive In the old monarchies men, for no reason save that they hall rendered the king some foolish and fantastic service, u ere given great grants of public lands, crowned with titles and allowed to fatten on public revenues. The result was a nobility about as useful to the nation as so many tin soldiers. The few memfiers of the English nobility that have won distinction have done so despite their titles. Indeed, in these modern davs most of the able men upon whom titles have been conferred helped themselves to distinction, and by the very force of their success compelled recognition from the Government.

Russia governed by a collection of worthless, dissipated Grand Dukes, all helped to place and power by an idioflc form of government, is notoriously the worst governed of all European nations.

There arc manv able, intelligent Russian men who. if allowed a part in the conduct of their country’s affairs, would speedily abolish the outrages that are perpetrated against the Russian people. But because they are men who know how to do things for themselves they are kept out of public life and the good-for-nothing brothers and uncles and cousins of the reigning Czar -men who never have known the necessity of any form of work —are continued in nower.

Very cautiously, very gradually, Hm people of Russia are profiting by the teachi -< of such men as Tolstoi: and th'" ■ will conic a day when tho Czar and his pr»-cious kinsmen will be invited to retire to some distant little island and allow Russia to come into its own.

The world may owe you and every other man a living, but tho world has a habit of never paying any debts that it can got out of paying. To ask or to accent help from others is a confession that, yon have ceased to rely on

vourself. To continue to accept help from others is to make yourself a worthless dependent. The most seasoned veteran in any trade or profession can give no better advice to the beginner than that given by the playwright we have quoted : “I helped myself. Unless you are able to do the'same you haven’t any ability.” For ability, as the very word implies, means being able to do things, and to do Things for yourself. ■ The son of the very rich man has a chance in life that is about equal to that of the son of the very poor man. The first- is denied the opportunity to do things for himself; the second is denied the opportunity to get a start in youth, to begin life with good health and a good education. Many mon who have had to work day and night to get a start in life imagine that by saving their sons from the same necessities they are doing them a signal service. They fancy that their sons will never be able to accomplish what their fathers accomplished unaided ; yet year after year many continue to succeed, despite the handicap of poverty or the necessity to do hard musclewearing work. * * *

Two men of wealth and poirer were talking of the future of their respective sens.

Said one• “I thank Heaven that 1 have it in my power to shield my boy from the hard knocks I had to bear. No brutal section boss is going to uso him the way 1 was used when 1 began work with a pick and shovel on the railroad. He is not going to have to fight and struggle and work eighteen hours a day to get enough money to branch, out on his own account the way I di<l I have given him a good education; I have equipped him for business, and lie will begin work as sccictnry of the railroad that I used to work on ns a section hand. He is bound to succeed.”

Said the other: “You’re a railroad president and a successful man, yet you began as a section hand. When you —but not a schooling in the railroad a roundhouse job to a superintendency there was a young man, the son of a i’ce-j.resident, made division superintendent. Do you remember him?” “Yes,” said the other. “He lasted just one week.” ‘‘He lasted just one week because he got the same kind of a start that yon are going to give your son. He got a college education—an excellent thing — but not schooling in the railroad business, and then he was set to work to learn his trade at the wrong end Tho men lie gave orders to knew more in a minute about the details of tho work than he- could learn in a year. Ho failed because lie had never done anything for himself, and you are going t.r give your own boy a splendid chance to moke the same kind of failure. Maybe. if he is a phenomenon, he will succeed. but the chances are all a<rainst it. My boy is nearing overalls and wiring cars as an electrician’s helper in the shop. I think lie will have a protHfair chance of success, for nobody is going to help him, and what he knows he lias got to learn.”

In youth boys rnd girls are entitled to help : their early years are years when they ought to be dependents. They are entitled to begin their work with t-ained bodies and trained minds, the advantage of good associations and the best counsels that can be given them. But when they once start out for themselves, if they have not the brains or tho energy to find their own road, thev mav be sure that no one will find it for them. Human nature is 99 per cent, selfish and. being selfish, is Poing to busy itself with its own affairs and to waXtc as little time n= possible in holding out helping hands or assisting others over the wall of success. And the sooner the youth who has his way to make learns that he must be his own helper, the sooner will he win.