Chapter 22: Keeping Fit for Work

"A great electric power-plant with half its dynamos out of commission through short-circuits and burn-outs caused by overloads, and several at half-speed, with wobbling bearings and loosened bolts, — that is what half the men and workers are like. They are not using half their power, half their talents, half their physiques, half their minds." Very few people bring the whole of themselves to their task. The causes are various — system-less working, vicious living, wrong thinking, wrong methods, wrong occupations.

The real material with which you build your career is in you. Your own self is your greatest capital. The secret of your future achievement is locked up in your brain, in your nerves, in your muscles, in your ambition, in your determination, and in your ideal. Everything depends upon your physical and mental condition, for that governs your vitality, your vigor, and your ability to do things. The amount of physical and mental force you are able to use in your vocation will measure your ultimate success, and whatever lessens this force, or the effectiveness of your achievement capital, will cut down your usefulness in life and your chances of success. Achievement does not depend so much upon the size of the deposits you have in the bank as upon the amount of capital you have in yourself, the effectiveness with which you can use it, and the power you can bring to your vocation. A man who is weakened by ill health, or who has sapped his energy by excessive use of tobacco or alcohol, or in any other way, has small chance for success when pitted against, one who is sound and vigorous in every organ and faculty.

Nature is not sentimental or merciful. If you violate her law, you must pay the penalty, though you sit on a throne; king or beggar is all the same with her. You cannot plead weakness or handicap as an excuse for failure. She demands that you be ever at the top of your condition, that you always do your best, and will accept no excuse or apology.

A weakness anywhere mars one's whole career. It will rise up as a ghost all through one's life-work, mortifying, condemning, and convicting one of past error. Every indiscretion or vicious indulgence simply opens a leak which drains off success capital.

Of what use is great success capital, of mental and physical equipment, if you are not wise enough to manage it to the best advantage, and to make it last until your success is assured?

It is sad to see a young man try to win high place with a broken-down constitution, or with his faculties half trained, and his success army completely demoralized, his prospects ruined by a shattered physique. The saddest think of all is that wise living might have made fulfilment of ambition possible and enriched the world with a noble, well-rounded life.

The great problem, then, which everyone has to face, is how to generate energy, how to conserve it, and how to keep oneself always at the top of his condition.

If you are level-headed, dead in earnest, and bound to make the most of yourself, you will regard every bit of energy, and every source of power, physical, mental, and moral, as precious life capital not to be parted with except for some worthy equivalent. You will look upon every form of dissipation and every little loss of energy as an unpardonable waste, a sin, — almost a crime. You will stop every leak of energy and prevent every unnecessary drain of your success capital, so that all the force you can muster, all the power you can command, shall be expanded most economically and effectively. You will keep every faculty and function up to a standard of the highest excellence so that you can come to your task in the morning a whole man, with every faculty intent, and every function normal. If you cannot carry a strong vigorous personality to your work every day, or if you bring but a small part of yourself to your task, you will realize but a small part of your possibilities.

One of the most foolish or insane things that a person can do is to go to his work in the morning with vitiated energy, wasted vitality, and a system so wearied that he cannot do vigorous, spontaneous work, but must force himself to do everything by sheer will power.

Keep yourself fit for work, so that you can do it with ease and dignity, and without struggle, strain, or loss. Approach your work with the air of a conqueror, and with assurance of victory in your very step. If you are at the top of your condition, your manner, even, will radiate power. You will exhale force from every pore. One can accomplish more in a single hour, if he feels the thrill of health pulsating through his entire being, than he can in a whole day if his physical condition is at a low ebb.

There is no success in weakness, no victory in the uncertain step, hesitating will, lagging hand, or languid brain of an exhausted man. He who is hampered by depleted vitality is constantly losing opportunities, because he lacks strength to grasp them, to hold on to them, and to use them. He is forced to fall behind and see men who have not half his mental capacity, but who have strong physiques and all their power intact, forge ahead of him and seize the prizes.

A great many people dissipate more energy between the time when they leave their work at night and when they return to it in the morning than they expend all day on their vocations, though they would be shocked and offended if any one were to tell them so. They think that physical dissipation is the only method of energy-sapping. But men and women of exemplary moral habits dissipate their vitality in a hundred ways. They indulge in wrong thinking; they worry; they fret; they fear this, that, and the other imaginary thing; and they carry their business home with them, and work as hard mentally after business hours as during them.

Whenever you are angry or feel like grumbling, or pouting, — whenever you are gloomy, fretful, or morose, — you are consuming your energy, wasting your vitality, and opening the sluice-ways in your mental reservoir, instead of sending the power over the wheel to drive the mental machinery.

Thackeray says, "Every man has a letter of credit written on his face." We are our own best advertisements, and if we appear to disadvantage in any particular, our standard, in the estimate of others, is cut down. The great majority of people who come in contact with us do not see us at our homes; they may never see our stocks and bonds, or lands and houses; they know nothing of us, unless it be by reputation, but what they see of our personality, and they judge us accordingly. They take it for granted that our general appearance is a sample of what we are and what we can do, and, if we are slovenly in dress, and in personal habits, they naturally think that our work and our lives will correspond. They are right. It does not matter where the slackness or shiftlessness manifests itself, or what its nature may be, it will reappear in your work, in your manner, and in your person. Many people form a careless habit of neglecting some part of their toilet, as when they black only the front part of their shoes and leave the heels untouched. The same incompleteness, the same lack of finish will appear in every letter they write and in every piece of work they attempt to do. It will prove a detriment to character-growth. The consciousness of incompleteness, or "slipshodness," tends to destroy self-respect, to lessen energy, and to detract from one's general ability.

In these days of inexpensive clothing no one can afford to leave his room until he is in a condition to be presentable anywhere. Neither can he afford to bother about thinking of his clothing after he is once dressed, but he should so clothe himself that he will be utterly unconscious of any inferiority. A sense of being fittingly and appropriately dressed increases one's efficiency and self-respect, and so adds materially to achievement. If you are improperly dressed or badly "groomed" you will feel a certain timidity in meeting people, a loss of power. This results in uneasiness, worry, chagrin, and a real loss of energy and self-confidence.

Girls who are not obliged to leave home to earn their living have a much weaker incentive to keep themselves up to standard than young men. If at all indolent they are often tempted to lie abed late, or to lounge around the house in slipshod apparel. Under such conditions many a girl falls into careless ways and deteriorates mentally and physically, developing an aversion to anything active or strenuous. Letting down all standards she slides along, listless, indifferent, and useless.

A young man, on the contrary, who knows that he must get up at a certain hour, and that he must be neatly dressed and in his place, ready to begin his day's work at an appointed time, or else lose his position, must perforce "keep up to concert pitch." He does not have a chance to consult his moods or to ask himself whether he feels like getting up and going out or not. He knows very well that he has no choice.

A young man who is trying to make the most out of his life cannot be too good to himself. Everything which ministers to his comfort and ease gives him a sense of harmony, assurance, and added power. Anything which will add to his self-respect, and will keep discord away from him, he should have at any cost he can afford.

Above all else, he should have a cozy, comfortable, and happy home. No man can do good work when he goes every night to an unattractive, uncomfortable, or discouraging home. He should provide himself with a good light, and an easy chair; he should surround himself with pictures and other works of art if possible. Everyone should have a comfortable sitting room, or a cozy corner somewhere, where he can read, think, and reflect by himself, — then he will grow. A great many boys and young men are totally unfitted for doing good work, especially in the evening, because they do not have an attractive place which tempts them to self-improvement.

A habit of keeping up to concert pitch and maintaining a high standard all along the line is of untold advantage.