 Many give up just this side of success. They start out in life with great enthusiasm, but it generally oozes out before they reach their goal. All along life's course we see people who have fallen out of the running at different stages. Men and women may be industrious, honest, enthusiastic, well educated, and have had good opportunities, but lack persistency and courage, and withdraw from the race when the unseen goal is only a little ahead. How surprised they would be if the veil were lifted! But the failure to take the last few steps has made all the difference to them between failure, or mediocrity, and the longed-for success. An army which no human being could number lies encamped around the great city of Success, close to its walls, near to its very gates, but it has never entered the city and it never will enter it. Thousands of people in this great army of the defeated would tell you, if questioned, that they never had a fair chance, that their education was neglected, and they never had anyone to favor them. Yet many of them were born and reared under the shadow of the night schools and splendid public libraries, and had all their evenings and a great deal of day time at their command, while the Abe Lincolns and thousands of other poor boys got their education by the light of pine knots before the fire in log cabins, or amid other lowly environments, and marched past them with triumphant step on their way to victory. Nearly every successful person has felt, during years of struggle and endeavor, that they were accomplishing very little, and that life might still be a failure. But those who have achieved good results kept on trying, no matter how dark the night, or how great the obstacles. There is no genius like that of holding on, and making continuous effort under difficulties. There are a thousand people who have talent to one who has grit. Brilliancy gives up, and talent gets disheartened before difficulty and lets go. There are some very brilliant men and women in public life who almost do great things, men and women who raise great expectations in some particular line, but who never win out. They remain perpetual prospectuses of works which are never published. I believe that more people fail from the lack of staying power than from almost anything else. Many are willing to pay any price to attain their ambition, except that of plain, down-right hard work. They are willing to expend any amount of energy in scheming, in cunning devices or shortcuts and abridged methods; but the thought of many years of tedious, laborious endeavor, the sacrificing of a thousand and one little comforts and pleasures, seems to be too much for them. Hosts of people spend may precious years trying to find success bargains, marked downs; trying to devise a quicker method than hard work. Some men and women have the peculiar faculty of putting things through, of getting things done, and this is always a sign of strength, of creative ability; an indication of leadership. Almost anybody can start a thing, but it is a rare person who can carry everything they undertake to a finish, and it is the finish which counts. |
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