Think Part 12

No person ever made success in business if he started in with uncertainty, lack of confidence and unbelief in his ability. Confidence has ever been half the battle.

[Sidenote: The World's Judgment.]

Knock yourself, and the world will accept you at your own estimate. Show streaks of yellow cowardice, and the mob will pounce on you like a pack of hungry wolves. Accuse yourself, curse your luck, belittle your worth, be afraid, and you will remain a mere b.u.mp on a log, unnoticed, uninteresting, uninvited.

The world welcomes men who do things. The world judges by outward appearances. If your heart is sick, if your courage is low, don't show it. Put up a stiff att.i.tude and act with confidence, and that att.i.tude will carry you over many a pitfall and past many an obstacle.

Show strength and the world will help you; show weakness and the world will shun you.

You are prejudiced when it comes to judging yourself. You compare your weakness with your friends' strength, and this comparison is unfair; it makes you lose confidence.

[Sidenote: Doubt and Belief.]

Nothing hurts one worse than doubting one's own ability, a.s.sets, and character. When you find yourself experiencing doubt, or inability, or hard luck, turn square around and say: "Begone, doubt; henceforth I have belief."

Say: "I have ability; I have pluck, and pluck means luck."

Always express confidence, faith, courage, and cheer thoughts, whether you feel them or not. Do this heroically and persistently, and soon the fear shadows and weakness feelings will leave you, and you will be in reality strong, courageous, active, and will do things you never thought possible.

"As a man thinketh, so is he." Always remember that.

Get hold of your thoughts; make yourself think up, and have faith and courage. Hold to your resolve, and the whole world will change. You will prosper, you will have poise, and every once in a while happiness will come as a reward.

No man will be more surprised at your complete change of att.i.tude and character than yourself.

Your problems can only be solved by yourself. Friends can advise, _I_ can suggest, but YOU must act.

Henceforth, never accuse yourself, never feel sorry for your condition or position, cut out fear thoughts,--be strong.

Think faith, courage, cheer, confidence, and strength, and by-and-by the habit will be fixed and natural.

This is as certain truth as I have ever experienced. I know it. I've tried it. I've watched others and the results are always good.

Don't be pa.s.sive and forget this chapter. Start right this minute to THINK RIGHT.

And you will never regret and never forget this chapter on Self-accusation.

24.

[Sidenote: Dare to Dream.]

The great colleges turn out thousands of graduates each year, and the great newspapers have much sport ridiculing them in funny pictures.

Every great man was once a boy with a dream, and that dream came true because the boy had pep that made him stick to his ambition and kept him from being discouraged because of ridicule or obstacles.

Thomas Carlyle, the poor Scotch tutor, dreamed he wanted to be a great author. His clothes were threadbare, his poverty apparent. Friends taunted and ridiculed him until, goaded to indignation, he cried: "I have better books in me than you have ever read." The crowd laughed incredulously and said: "Poor fellow, he's batty."

Carlyle stuck to his dream and the world has the "History of Frederick the Great" and the "French Revolution" and "Sartor Resartus." When he had finished the ma.n.u.script of the "French Revolution," a careless maid built a fire with it. He wasn't discouraged, but went to work and wrote it over again and very likely better than he wrote it the first time.

Bonaparte in the garden of his military school dreamed of being a great general. He stuck to his dream and he realized his hopes.

Joseph Pulitzer, a poor emigrant, crawled in a cellar way in New York to sleep, and he dreamed of owning a great newspaper. His dream came true, and the newspaper is printed in a building erected on the spot where he dreamed in the cellar way.

Livingston dreamed of exploring darkest Africa; his dream came true.

Edison dreamed of great electrical discoveries. His monument is Menlo Park with its great laboratories.

Ford dreamed of making an automobile for the purse-limited ma.s.ses--he was jeered; to-day the world cheers him.

My friend, Bert Perrine, was chucked off a stage in the middle of Idaho's great sage brush desert. He said to the driver, "Some day I'll own that stage and I'll use it for a chicken house."

He dreamed and schemed, and to-day the desert is the famous Twin Falls country, blossoming like a rose. And on his beautiful ranch at Blue Lakes, that old stage is used for a chicken house.

Rockefeller dreamed, Lincoln dreamed--so did Garfield, Wilson, Grant, Clay, Webster, Marshall Field, Richard W. Sears and all the other men who have done things worth while in the world.

The great West is the result of dreams come true.

Dream on, my boy; hitch your wagon to a star and stay hitched. That dream and that determination are the things that are to carry you over obstacles, past th.o.r.n.y ways, and through criticism, jeers and ridicule.

Your time will come. Dream and scheme, and make your ideals materialize into living, pulsating realities.

25.

There are many persons who act and advocate ideals merely for effect--they are hypocrites.

Here's a little true heart story that probably pa.s.sed unnoticed except to a very few persons.

[Sidenote: Real Charity.]

Little Spencer Nelson, a poor boy, eight years old, recently died in a hospital with a little bank clasped to his breast. The bank held $3.41 in pennies which the boy had saved to buy presents for the poor children in his city.

The little hero had fought manfully through three months' suffering, enduring the torture of five lacerating operations. The pain failed to dim the spirit of unselfishness which burned brightly and clearly in his tired, fever-racked body.

After each operation his mind became more securely fixed on his project to help bring cheer to poor children.

The little savings bank was his companion, and each visitor was asked to contribute to his fund.

Three hours before he died, a smile beautified his thin wasted face as the nurse dropped a dime in his bank. His last words--a message to his mother--were in a scarcely audible whisper, asking her to remember to use the money to make poor children happy.

That was real charity; that boy had no hypocrisy in his heart.

[Sidenote: Seek and You Will Find.]