Here you will learn Perseverance Lessons, Principles Of Success
Page 15 of
50.
A maxim that one would have to seek far to disprove is that Chance plays a
much less important part in life than is generally believed.
The people who achieve success in the world are very rarely indebted for it to
this blind deity, and, even if luck seems to follow them continually, one should
be able to convince oneself that it is because they have taken every possible
means for accomplishing that much-to-be-desired result.
Those who entrench themselves behind these wretched excuses are merely obstinate
people who do not wish to take upon their own shoulders all the blame for their
own failures and wish to make the world at large responsible for their
mistakes.
Should one sympathize with them!
By no means! One should seek to cure them by pointing out to them with all the
delicacy at one's command the fallacious lines upon which they have been
reasoning.
It would be very undiplomatic to push this point too much. One should at first
merely give them a gentle warning, in the form of an opinion that seeks to
praise certain parts of what they have tried to do while, without wounding them
too much, offering a fair criticism of the weak points in their attempts.
And so, little by little, in seeking with them to rebuild the fallen edifice,
one can slip in a bit of good advice here and there under the pretext of helping
them to reestablish things on a surer foundation.
Experience will do the rest for them and, if they are at all open to reason,
they will soon learn without much difficulty to draw the line of demarcation
which separates obstinacy from perseverance.
One must be specially careful not to destroy in the hearts of those people who
are sincerely obstinate that quality of hope which was the original cause of
their persistence.
On the contrary, it is by leaving this hope untouched that one can accomplish
the feat of changing obstinacy into perseverance, since the foundation of this
obstinacy was merely a too blind faith in the future.
One must not forget either that the base of all forms of obstinacy is invariably
a false method of reasoning.
The original cause of the trouble must then be eradicated, if one wishes to cure
it entirely.
Between obstinacy and perseverance there is simply a difference in the quality
of judgment.
The man of perseverance is he whose brain, rendered supple by reflection, never
conceives of attempting a project until he has discuss it thoroughly with
himself and has also talked it over from all points of view with those who are
competent to advise him.
He will listen with the greatest care to any objections they may raise, even
when they are diametrically opposed to his original convictions, and will make a
mental note of every one of them, with the intention of considering them later
on and of estimating their value impartially.
If any part of this advice seems to him to be of real worth he will have no
false shame about admitting the superiority of the procedure or the line of
action recommended.
It is by avoiding obstinacy that one paves the way to success.
The man who is obstinate, on the other hand --and this is the least of his
faults--pays no sort of attention to advice, however much to the point it may
happen to be.
He listens to none but favorable counsels and turns a deaf ear to all advice
that does not harmonize with his own views or join in the chorus of praise that
acclaims the undertaking he has in mind or upon which he is already embarked.
He scorns the advice of the old proverb which says:
"The man who listens to only one bell hears only one note!"
He heeds only the flattering music of the bell he himself is ringing.
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