it suggests the need
of serious, whole-souled, conscientious effort. If these laws exist,--as
they most certainly do,--what is the use of trying to achieve results
in a wrong way? Why not conform to these laws and concentrate our effort
in the right direction? A prodigious amount of energy is wasted in
efforts to beat the game. One may scheme and contrive until all ambition
withers and hope fades, but no one will ever find a satisfactory
substitute for hard work. Many lives have been frittered away in the
foolish attempt to find the "easy road." It is doing the little things
of life conscientiously that counts. The humble hen does one thing well.
She lays eggs to the extent of three hundred million dollars per year,
in this country alone. If we combine her egg yield with her chicken
industry we find her harvest yields the enormous sum of six hundred and
twenty million dollars per year.
We are precisely what we deserve to be: we fit for what we are fitted
for. Weaklings are sent to the rear, fighters are always in front.
The young wife may resolve to win; it depends upon how she begins to
mold herself for larger possibilities. If she cannot succeed in small
things she will not fit when the task is bigger. Suppose you resolve to
be considerate and agreeable to every soul you meet for one month. For
one month you will subject yourself to a rigid test, you will be
considerate and agreeable, no matter what the conditions are or the
provocation may be to break your word.
It is a fact that most failures are directly attributable to laziness
rather than to lack of ability or poor health, or any other cause. It is
the most difficult thing in the world for some people to exert
themselves to "make the effort" to succeed. They just do enough to "hold
their job" or to earn a living, though the possibilities around them are
rich in promise. Many know what they ought to do, but they don't seem to
be able to do it. Their ambition is lacking; they elect to travel the
road to failure.
If the young wife resolves to be considerate and agreeable for one
month, she is the right kind of young wife. The right impulse is working
within her. The very fact that she makes the resolve proves this. Most
people are influenced by two motives, necessity and pleasure. They work
because they have to work to exist. But a great deal of the work is
indifferently done. The woman who skims over her household duties in a
disinterested and frequently sl
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