THE WORLD DOES NOT OWE YOU A LIVING, YOUNG MAN.
No, my son, the world does not owe you a living. The world does not need you, jußt yet ; you need the world. If you can convince the world that you are necessary to its well-being, its happiness, its pleasure, its mental existence, then the world will begin to claim you and make room for you in the body pews with the softest cushions and the easiest footstools. But don't fall into the common error of supposing the world owes you a living. It doesn't owe you anything of the kind. The world isn't responsible for your being. It didn't sent for you jit never asked you to come here ; and in no sense is it obliged to support you now that you are here. Your living is here— a good comfortable living Plenty to eat, plenty to wear, an abundance of good, healthful, hard work, ripples of laughter and sprinkles of tears, hours of happiness and moments of heartache, days of labour and Dights of reat, duties to be performed and rewards to be won ; it is all here, son— disappointments, struggles, success and honours ; but the world does not owe you one of them — not one. You can't collect your living as you would a debt, by simply presenting your bill or giving your lawyer the account to sue. You bave to work for it, son, and work like a Trojin, too. When you hear a man say that the world owes him a living, and he is going to have it, make up your mind that he is just making himself a good excuse for stealing a living. The world doesn't owe any man any. thing, son. It will give you anything you earn, and you just look out over the world and know that all the plunder you can gather in by honeßt work is yours, and no more. If you can't get any, why, none of it is yours, and if you oan reach out and can carry away ten times as much as your neighbour, why, that is all yours, and he has no right to wait and whine over bis bad luok, and want; you to divide, And, my eon, in all human probability, you will not want to divide. I hope
you may j but it is very likely that you won't.— Burdette, in Hawkeyo.
THE WORLD DOES NOT OWE YOU A LIVING, YOUNG MAN.
Otago Witness, Issue 1476, 28 February 1880, Page 27
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