Chapter 9: Learn to Expect A Great Deal Of Life

An infinite benefit comes from forming the habit of expecting the best of life for oneself. Do not go about with an expression of discontent on your face, giving everybody the impression that the good things of this world were intended for someone else. Practise the art of stretching your mind over great expectations. In this way you will broaden your position. If you learn the art of expecting great things for and from yourself, you are more likely to prepare yourself for great things. A sort of discontent has led to all the great things which have happened from the time of the earliest Hottentots to that of the Lincolns and the Gladstones.

No one can accomplish anything great in this world who is contented with little, who is confident that he was made for little things, or is satisfied with what happens to come in his way.

A man who expects great things of himself is constantly trying to open a little wider the doors of his narrow life, to extend his limited knowledge, to reach a little higher, to get a little farther on than those around him. He has enough of the divine disposition within him to spur him on to nobler endeavors. He looks to get the best of the things offered to him.

A false idea of what constitutes genius and real success is one of the greatest stumbling-blocks in the way of youth's progress. It would be as reasonable for a mustard seed to refuse to grow because it never can become a pine, or for the grape-vine to refuse to extend its tendrils because it cannot become an oak, as for a boy to lose precious years hesitating and dallying because uncertain as to his possessing genius. The duty of the acorn is to become an oak, not a pine, not a rose. There is infinitely less of what is called real genius in the world than is generally supposed; that is, that genius which Joshua Reynolds declared to be "a power of producing excellences which are outside of the rules of art, a power which no prospect can touch and no industry acquire." Somehow, the average youth seems to think that there is breathed into some men a divine fire, a surpassing gift to do things without effort, thus violating all the laws of persistent industry; power to transmute common things into gold, a power akin to that of the Creator. The sooner one banishes from his mind all such nonsense the better.

Very few really successful men can give a satisfactory explanation as to why they pursued the course they are on. They seem to have been kept going by means of an unseen power. They simply acted in accordance with the best light they had.

No man can see the goal at the beginning. Even when he crosses the line in the race, he can see only a few steps ahead. He is not guided by a star in the distance which beckons him on, but rather by a lantern which he carries in his hand, and which illumines but a short way in advance, just enough to enable him to take the next step with certainty and without fear. Beyond that all is shrouded in mist. But, as he travels on, the lantern never fails him.

When we are sure that we are on the right road there is no need to plan our journey too far ahead; no need to burden ourselves with doubts and fears as to the obstacles that may bar our progress. We cannot take more than one step at a time.

There is a perpetual inspiration in the effort to live one's best every day. To consider the whole of life at once is too much to grasp; but the effort to live one's best every day, to determine that for the day before us, at least, our ideal shall not be low-lying, but shall aspire, — this is practical right living, practical character-building.

Nothing else so strengthens the mind, enlarges the manhood, and widens the thought, as the constant effort to measure up to a high ideal, to struggle after that which is above and beyond us.

No matter what your work may be, or what you may do, put your ideal into it; be sure there is an upward tendency in it, an inspiring quality, a certain indefinable something which allies it to the divine.

Everybody loves an aspiring mind; a mind that looks up, never down, — out, never in, — no matter what difficulties confront it.

How quickly we can distinguish the aspiring from the grovelling mind! There is a certain indescribable charm about the person who has formed a habit of looking up; there is a superior quality in everything he does, no matter whether he be a congressman or a blacksmith.

"Did you ever hear of a man who had striven all his life faithfully and singly toward an object," asked Thoreau, "and in no measure obtained it? If a man constantly aspires, is he not elevated? Did ever a man try heroism, magnanimity, truth, sincerity and find that there was no advantage in them, — that it was a vain endeavor?"

Aspiration finally becomes inspiration, and ennobles the whole life.

Most of us build Chinese walls around ourselves by our vicious thinking, our low ideals, unnatural living, separating ourselves from all that is best and sweetest in life. The stones in these walls are criticism, fault-finding, seeing the worst instead of the best in the world about us; they are made of worry, anxiety, trouble. We build these walls about us so high that they shut out the sunlight and we live in perfect darkness. No man can see over the wall which he erects over himself.

The character must feel the ideal; it is the aim which modifies the character and shapes the life. It influences motives, colors actions, determines destiny. The whole life points toward the ideal. If that is low, the life points downward, if high, it aspires. If they look towards the light, the faculties will look up; if towards the darkness, they will face night.

The leading aim will change the face to suit it, it will look out of the manner, it will speak from the bearing. What we long for and strive to attain, everybody who knows us. can read; for we radiate our dominant aim. What we long to express in our life we are constantly expressing in our character. We radiate our purpose from every pore. Our ideal looks out of every voluntary act as much as our individuality inheres in every sentence of our handwriting and in our conversation. The ideal is constantly trying to become real, to out-picture itself upon the body in every act.

The real object of education and culture is to eliminate the brute nature and develop the real man. To attain this object everything depends upon choosing a high ideal at the very outset of life.

A grand character can never be developed under the shadow of a low, sordid aim. To look constantly to a high ideal is the only safe course for him who would become cultured and win real success. Manhood is a plant which thrives only in the sunshine of the soul. Its blossoms are chilled in a narrow, sordid, selfish atmosphere. The fruits of selfishness will surely kill the blossoms of perfection.

How little does a youth who starts out to make a fortune realize that the grasping passion to get and to hold will grow until it becomes a giant that will ultimately crush out all his finer sensibilities and nobler instincts! The man who is always scheming and planning to get the better of somebody else will unconsciously blight and wither up the qualities which, if nurtured, would bring into fruitage the principles of the Golden Rule.

The mind that is being constantly trained in shrewdness, sharpness, sagacity, cunning; that is ever on the alert to take advantage of. a competitor's weakness; that is trained to see real value only in money and that which money can procure; to put the dollar mark on everything, to take advantage of others' weaknesses and misfortunes; in short, the training which teaches a youth to use those who have fallen in the race as stepping-stones to his own elevation is a process of education which develops only the brute qualities and dwarfs or wholly destroys soul-growth.

The supreme object of education and culture is to develop man along the line of his noblest nature, so that he will be not only keen, sagacious, and shrewd, but broad-minded, evenly and sympathetically balanced, tolerant, sweet, and charitable.

The properly educated youth will naturally express in his life the principles of the Golden Rule; he will recognize that others do not exist merely for his benefit; he will see that the highest good for each lies in mutual reciprocity. An education which does not achieve these results, which does not bring sweetness and light, harmony and power into the life, is no education at all.

It is one thing to succeed in business according to the ordinary acceptation; it is another and a totally different thing to succeed in life. Many a man has failed in business and yet lived a truly successful life, because he has lived up to his highest ideal. The man who does the very best he can under all circumstances, who makes the most of his ability and opportunities, who helps his fellowman whenever it is in his power to do so, who gives the best of himself to every occasion, who is loyal and true in his friendships, kindly, charitable, and magnanimous toward all, is a successful man, though he may not leave enough money to pay his funeral expenses.

A noble character cannot be developed under the shadow of a low, sordid aim. The ideal must be high; the purpose strong, worthy, and true; or the life will be a failure. The man who is constantly scheming and planning to get the better of his neighbor, to drive a bargain in which the advantage will be all on his side, can never attain the dignity and grandeur of true manhood.

How many men who think they are succeeding by amassing fortunes are really failing to secure the very things for which they strive! While they are struggling to get that which they think will purchase nearly everything desirable, the true riches, without which all the money in the universe is but a mockery, elude their grasp.

Man is not a brute. To draw in and blow out the breath, or to eat and drink, is not living. A man cannot live by bread alone. The aesthetic faculties, the aspiring instincts, in a well-developed man, are ever more imperious in their demands for the true and the beautiful, for the higher and the nobler, than is the body for material food. It is as natural for the soul to aspire as it is for a blade of grass or a tree to grow upward.

“What is man,

If the chief good and market of his time

Be but to sleep and feed? — a beast, no more:

Sure He that made us with such large discourse,

Looking before and after, gave us not

That capability and god-like reason

To rust in us unused."

When we see a boy or girl seizing every spare moment and every half-holiday for self-improvement, when we see them gathering for self-enrichment the odds and ends of time which other boys and girls throw away, we are confident that they mean to gather riches which will not take wings. Wherever we see the disposition to make the most of oneself, to let no opportunity to add to one's self-culture pass, we feel sure that there we will find great returns, great wealth of character, of manhood or womanhood in the future.

Is there anything grander in this world than to see a young person who is bent upon self-enrichment, who is trying to make his life broader and sweeter and cleaner and truer, who is trying to be more of a man or more of a woman every day.

There is nothing impoverishing in the process of self-enrichment. If you are investing in helpfulness, in kindness, in unselfishness, in sympathy, in a longing to help everybody you come in contact with, to leave him a little higher up, a little further on, your life is growing richer and sweeter every day.

This is the kind of riches that endures, of wealth that lasts, — riches that fire cannot burn up, floods cannot wash away, which panics cannot affect. This is health that inheres in character. It is a part of manhood or womanhood. It is like gold, which no fire can consume or chemicals annihilate. The elements cannot touch it, calumny, detraction, abuse cannot tarnish it.