Few people have accomplished anything in this life worth mentioning who have not had a definite purpose in view, to which every faculty of their mind and body is made to bend. People without a purpose abound on every hand, with nothing in appearance to distinguish them from their fellows except a kind of mental or physical inertia or a fickleness of disposition, causing them to flit about from one pursuit to another, as a butterfly does from flower to flower. Their personal lack of purpose may not be apparent to the casual observer, especially if they be sufficiently under the influence of strong-minded, decisive friends, who furnish the purpose for them, and manipulate them as if they were human automatons. Some people seem to be born with a purpose, or--more properly speaking--with a disposition to form a purpose, and adhere to it. They are not only possessed of energy, but of the power of concentration, the ability to apply themselves to the one particular purpose before them until they succeed. Lacking a purpose--either innate or acquired--people are apt to drift aimlessly through life, like an abandoned boat upon the ocean, subject to every wind that blows and every current that flows. With conditions favorable, they may float on indefinitely, even as derelicts at sea have been known to do for years without meeting with any serious obstruction. Their course may be so serene, and so attended with good fortune, that observers may be almost forced to the conclusion that they have a charmed existence. The real test of their constancy and endurance comes to the mechanical derelicts when storms beset them and breakers loom up before them, and to their human prototypes when obstacles are encountered that only a strong mind can cope with, and when no friendly support is at hand, to lean upon. The weak and vacillating then flounder in uncertainty, so lacking in self-confidence as to be absolutely unable to formulate and execute any purposeful plan, while the strong-minded, resolute, self-reliant people carefully lay their plans, and then proceed to fulfill them. Of course the majority of human derelicts are unwilling to admit that their failure to succeed is due to any fault of theirs. They prefer to believe that they are the victims of chance, or ill-luck, or lack of opportunity. Many of them have no desire to work, and others, if not really lazy, have no pride or interest in the work they do, and are therefore very indifferent workmen, and seldom retain a job long after getting it.