Analyzing Character: The New Science of Judging Men; Misfits in Business, the Home and Social LifeBlackford, Katherine M. H. (Katherine Melvina Huntsinger)
Science
Analyzing Character: The New Science of Judging Men; Misfits in Business, the Home and Social Life
Blackford, Katherine M. H. (Katherine Melvina Huntsinger)
Characters and characteristics; Success
We attended two great political conventions in 1912. There were more than
one thousand delegates at each convention. So certain were we of the type
of men successful enough politically to be chosen as delegates to a
national convention of their party, that we offered a prize of ten dollars
to the friends who accompanied us for every delegate they would point out
to us who did not have a round, full back-head, making his head appear
long directly backwards from the ears. Although our friends were skeptical
and planned in some detail as to what they would do with the money they
expected to win from us, we attended both conventions without a penny of
outlay for prizes. If you know any unfriendly, unsocial men, look at the
backs of their heads and see how short they are.
There are vocations for all who have the courage, the ambition, the
willingness to work, the persistence to keep ever-lastingly at it. Finding
one's true vocation in life means, not finding an easy way to success, but
finding an opportunity to work and work hard at something interesting,
something you can do well, and something in which your highest and best
talents will find an opportunity for their fullest expression.
Just as finding an unusual talent for music means years and years of the
most careful study and preparation, followed by incessant practice; just
as finding of a talent for the law means years of work in schools,
colleges and universities; so the finding of a talent for business,
mechanics, science, construction, or any other vocation involves years of
study, self-development, preparation, and practice, if you are to achieve
a worth-while success.
A HARD-LUCK STORY
The following incident illustrates plainly enough the mental attitude of
the average fellow--the reason why he has failed, and the remedy:
A man came into our office complaining of his luck.
He was on the gray and wrinkled side of the half-century mark, somewhat
bent, and slow of step.
This was the tune of his dirge:
"My life is a failure. I have never had a chance. My father was poor and
couldn't give me the advantages that other young men had. So I've had my
nose on the grindstone all my life long.
"See what I am to-day. While other men have made money and, at my age, are
well fixed, I am dependent on my little old Saturday night envelope to
keep me from starving. That wouldn't be so bad, but my employers are
beginning to hint that I'm not so lively as I was once and that a younger
man would fill the job better. It's only a question of time when I'll be a
leading member of the Down and Out Club. Then it'll be the Bay for mine."
Our friend, whom we call Mr. Socratic, butted into the conversation right
here.
"Pretty tough luck!" he said. "Know any men of your age that are doing
better?"
"Sure, lots of 'em."
"What's the reason?"
"Well, they have had better luck."
"How do you mean? Investments turned out better?"
"No; I never had anything to invest."
"How, then?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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