By J.R. Miller
Many people fail in life, because they lack courage to do or to endure disagreeable things. They demand a career with only congenial experiences. They insist on getting the roses without the thorns. They want to reach fine results, without the toil it costs other men to reach them. They wish to stand upon the mountain peaks--but they are unwilling to climb the steep, rugged paths which lead up to them. They desire success in life--but they are not ready to work for it. They dream beautiful dreams--but they have not the skill or the energy to forge their dreams into realities. They would like to leave the disagreeable out of every phase of their existence. They are impatient of a disagreeable environment. They dislike disagreeable people and have not the good nature necessary to get along with them. They complain bitterly when they must suffer any inconvenience, when the weather is uncomfortable, when circumstances are unfavorable, when they are sick. They cannot bear disappointment, and they chafe and fret when things do not turn out as they expected.
But there really is nothing manly or noble in such an attitude towards life. It may be said, first of all, that it is impossible to find a path in this world, which has not in it something disagreeable. There always are thorns as well as roses, and usually they grow on the same stalk. There are some dark, unpleasant days in the brightest and most cheerful summer. It is not likely that every one of a hundred neighbors or companions at work, is altogether congenial--almost certainly there will be one disagreeable person among them. Then it is not by any means certain that even one's most congenial and best natured friend will be perfectly agreeable every hour of the three hundred and sixty five days in a year. The sweetest people are apt to have their disagreeable moods now and then. The sunniest hearted friend will likely have a day of cloud now and then.
It may be said, further, that not only is the disagreeable inevitable in life--but it is also the school in which much that is best may be learned. Nothing really noble and worthy is ever attained easily. One may get money by inheritance from an ancestor--but one cannot get education, culture, refinement, or character as an inheritance. These possessions can become ours only through our own struggle, toil, and self discipline.
Some people dream of genius as a gift which makes work unnecessary. They imagine that with this wondrous power, they can do the finest things without learning to do them. They fancy, for example, that genius can sit down at a piano the first time it sees the instrument, and play exquisitely the noblest music; or put a vision of beauty on the canvas without having touched brushes before; or write a story, a poem, or an essay which will thrill all hearts, without ever having been a student and without literary training; or go into business and build up a great fortune without having had any preliminary business experience.
But such thoughts of life, are only idle dreams. The truest definition of genius is that it is merely "an infinite capacity for taking pains." Those who expect results without processes, can only be bitterly disappointed in the end. Nothing beautiful or worthy in any department of life, was ever achieved or attained without toil. "Wherever a great work is done, there also has been Gethsemane." The lovely works of human creation which people linger before with admiring wonder, have all cost a great price. Somebody's heart's blood has gone into every great picture, into ever stanza of sweet song, into every paragraph which inspires men. It has been noted that the root of the word bless is the word for blood. We can bless another in deep and true ways, only by giving of our life blood. Anything that will do real good, can be wrought only in tears and suffering. When Raphael was asked how he produced his immortal pictures he replied, "I dream dreams and see visions--and then I paint my dreams and my visions."
And not only are these painful processes necessary in order to produce results which are worth while--but it is in them that we grow into whatever is beautiful and noble. Work is the only means of growth. Instead of being only a curse, as some would have us believe, work is a means of measureless good. Not to work is to keep always an undeveloped hand, or heart, or brain. The things which work may achieve, are not half as important as that which work does in us.
A genial writer has given us a new beatitude--"Blessed be drudgery!" and in a delightful essay, proves that we owe to what we speak of ordinarily as drudgery, the best things in our life and character. A child dislikes to be called in the morning and to have to be off to school at the same hour every day, and chafes at rules, bells, lessons, and tasks; but it is in this very drudgery of home and school in which the child is being trained for noble and beautiful life. The child that misses such discipline, growing up as its own sweet will inclines, may seem to be fortunate and may be envied--but it is missing that without which all its future career will be less beautiful and less strong. "Blessed be drudgery!" It is in the tiresome routine of hours, tasks, and rules--that we learn to live worthily and that we get into our life itself those qualities which belong to true manhood. Those who have been brought up from childhood to be prompt, systematic, to pay every debt, always to keep every promise and appointment, never to be late--will carry the same good habits into their mature life, in whatever occupation it may be called, and when these qualities will mean so much in success.
Thus, irksome things play an important part in the making of life. We can shirk them if we will--but if we do so, we throw away our opportunity, for there is no other way to success. Young people should settle it once for all, that they will shrink from no task, no toil, no self discipline which faces them, knowing that beyond the thing which is unpleasant and hard, lies some treasure which can be reached and possessed in no way, but by accepting the drudgery. Nor can we get some other one to do our drudgery for us, for then the other person, not we, would get the reward which belongs to the task work, and which cannot be obtained apart from it. We must do our own digging. The rich man's son might easily find some other one who would be willing to study for him, for a money consideration--but no money could buy the gains of study and put them in among his own life treasures. We can acquire knowledge, culture, breadth of mind--only through our own work.
It is a misfortune to a young man to be born rich, not to have to ask, "What shall I do for a living?" unless he has in him the manly courage to enter life as if he were a poor man and to learn to work as if he must indeed earn his bread by the sweat of his own brow. There is no other way to grow into manly character. There is no other way to make life worth while.
We are very foolish, therefore, certainly very short sighted, to quarrel with the disagreeable in our lot, of whatever sort it is. The disagreeable is inevitable. We cannot find all things just to our own mind, in even the most perfect human lot in this world. Nor could we afford to miss the things which are less pleasant, which are even painful. We shrink from life's hard battles--but it is only through struggle and victory, that we can reach the fair heights of honor, and win the prizes of noble character. We dread sorrow--but it is through sorrow's bitterness that we find life's deepest, truest joy. We hold our life back from sacrifice--but it is only through losing our life that we can ever really save it. If we have faith and courage to welcome struggle, cost, pain, and sacrifice--we shall find our feet ever on the path to the best things in attainment and achievement in this world, and the highest glory at the last.
