The University of Hard Knocks Part 6

And do you not see that we are very foolish when we want to be lifted up to some big place, or when we want some big person to be put down to some little place? We are foolishly trying to overturn the eternal law of life.

We shake right back to the places our size determines. We must get ready for places before we can get them and keep them.

The very worst thing that can happen to anybody is to be artificially boosted up into some place where he rattles.

I hear a good deal about destiny. Some people seem to think destiny is something like a train and if we do not get to the depot in time our train of destiny will run off and leave us, and we will have no destiny. There is destiny--that jar.

If we are small we shall have a small destiny. If we are great we shall have a great destiny. We cannot dodge our destiny.

Kings and Queens of Destiny

The objects in that jar cannot change their size. But thank G.o.d, you and I are not helpless victims of blind fate. We are not creatures of chance. We have it in our hands to decide our destiny as we grow or refuse to grow.

We shake down if we become small; we shake up if we become great. And when we have reached the place our size determines, we stay there so long as we stay that size.

If we wish to change our place, we must first change our size. If we wish to go down, we must grow smaller and we shall shake down. If we wish to go up, we must grow greater, and we shall shake up.

Each person is doing one of three things consciously or unconsciously.

1. He is holding his place.

2. He is going down.

3. He is going up.

In order to hold his place he must hold his size. He must fill the place. If he shrinks up he will rattle. n.o.body can stay long where he rattles. Nature abhors a rattler. He shakes down to a smaller place.

In order to stay the same size he must grow enough each day to supply the loss by evaporation. Evaporation is going steadily on in lives as well as in liquids. If we are not growing any, we are rattling.

We Compel Promotion

So you young people should keep in mind that you will shake into the places you fit. And when you are in your places--in stores, shops, offices or elsewhere, if you want to hold your place you must keep growing enough to keep it tightly filled.

If you want a greater place, you simply grow greater and they cannot keep you down. You do not ask for promotion, you compel promotion. You grow greater, enlarge your dimensions, develop new capabilities, do more than you are paid to do--overfill your place, and you shake up to a greater place.

I believe if I were so fortunate or unfortunate as to have a number of people working for me, I would have a jar in my office filled with various sizes of objects. When an employee would come into the office and say, "Isn't it about time I was getting a raise?" I would say, "Go shake the jar, Charlie. That is the way you get raised. As you grow greater you won't need to ask to be promoted. You will promote yourself."

"Good Luck" and "Bad Luck"

This jar tells me so much about luck. I have noted that the lucky people shake up and the unlucky people shake down. That is, the lucky people grow great and the unlucky people shrivel and rattle.

Notice as I b.u.mp this jar. Two things happened. The little ones shook down and the big ones shook up. The b.u.mp that was bad luck to the little ones was good luck to the big ones. The same b.u.mp was both good luck and bad luck.

Luck does not depend upon the direction of the b.u.mp, but upon the size of the b.u.mp-ee!

The "Lucky" One

So everywhere you look you see the barrel sorting people according to size. Every business concern can tell you stories like that of the Chicago house where a number of young ladies worked. Some of them had been there for a long time. There came a raw, green Dutch girl from the country. It was her first office experience, and she got the bottom job.

The other girls poked fun at her and played jokes upon her because she was so green.

Do you remember that green things grow?

"Is not she the limit?" they oft spake one to another. She was. She made many blunders. But it is now recalled that she never made the same blunder twice. She learned the lesson with one helping to the b.u.mps.

And she never "got done." When she had finished her work, the work she had been put at, she would discover something else that ought to be done, and she would go right on working, contrary to the rules of the union! Without being told, mind you. She had that rare faculty the world is bidding for--initiative.

The other girls "got done." When they had finished the work they had been put at, they would wait--O, so patiently they would wait--to be told what to do next.

Within three months every other girl in that office was asking questions of the little Dutch girl. She had learned more about business in three months than the others had learned in all the time they had been there. Nothing ever escaped her. She had become the most capable girl in the office.

The barrel did the rest. Today she is giving orders to all of them, for she is the office superintendent.

The other girls feel hurt about it. They will tell you in confidence that it was the rankest favoritism ever known. "There was nothing fair about it. Jennie ought to have been made superintendent. Jennie had been here four years."

The "Unlucky" One

The other day in a paper-mill I was standing beside a long machine making shiny super-calendered paper. I asked the man working there some questions about the machine, which he answered fairly well. Then I asked him about a machine in the next room. He said, "I don't know nothing about it, boss, I don't work in there."

I asked him about another process, and he replied, "I don't know nothing about it, I never worked in there." I asked him about the pulpmill. He replied, "No, I don't know nothing about that, neither. I don't work in there." And he did not betray the least desire to know anything about anything.

"How long have you worked here?"

"About twelve years."

Going out of the building, I asked the foreman, "Do you see that man over there at the supercalendered machine?" pointing to the man who didn't know. "Is he a human being?"

The foreman's face clouded. "I hate to talk to you about that man. He is one of the kindest-hearted men we ever had in the works, but we've got to let him go. We're afraid he'll break the machine. He isn't interested, does not learn, doesn't try to learn."