Here you will learn American Success, Success Secrets, Success Quote
Page 45 of
50.
But it is of great use
to draw inspiration from lessons like these. After having concentrated our
thoughts upon ourselves, and having made an exhaustive examination of our
tastes, our desires, and our aptitude, so far as we are able to classify them,
it may be granted us, by molding ourselves after certain illustrious examples,
to persevere upon the road of our choice, and at last to become shining lights
in our turn.
There is a story that one day a philosopher, while walking in his garden,
noticed some trees of the same species, of which some grew up straight and
strong, while others were stunted and withered.
He inquired the reason, and was informed that the first had been planted
directly upon the spot in which they were growing, while the others had been
transplanted several times.
Turning toward the pupils who accompanied him, he pointed out these trees to
them and told them that they ought to look upon them as a symbol.
"Devotion to constantly changing aims," said he, "has for young people the same
danger that numerous changes of position have for plants.
"Hardly have the roots had time to form themselves before they are broken by the
plant's being plucked out of the ground.
"The same thing holds true for those who abandon the career that they have
originally chosen.
"All their former work goes for nothing and they have to form new habits and new
aptitudes in surroundings which are little known to them and often full of
danger."
It is, therefore, of the greatest importance that we should not start without
proper reflection along a road that we do not know, whose difficulties we have
not taken the trouble to study, whose pitfalls we are ignorant of, and among
whose impassable rocks and dangerous gulfs we may well perish miserably for lack
of a little foresight.
In every choice of a profession, whatever its nature may be, two things must
first of all be avoided:
Infatuation.
Unreasonable expectations.
We have spoken, at the beginning of this book, of enthusiasm, and have pointed
out how easily it can be turned into wrong channels.
We must repeat this statement in connection with infatuation, which is not
altogether the same thing as enthusiasm, but may be considered as closely allied
to it.
Enthusiasm generally manifests itself only after we have acquired a certain
knowledge of a subject. It is rarely produced solely and entirely by the object
that appears to be its cause, and always makes its presence known by outward
signs.
If it is not nourished by exterior influences, enthusiasm will very rarely
remain at white- heat.
One can then at once predict disillusionment just as sudden as has been the
previous enthusiasm, and which will arrive the more quickly the more ardent the
devotion has been.
Infatuation is less expansive. It does not die a natural death for lack of
association. It is more tenacious, and more to be feared for the reason that it
grows in the same way as enthusiasm.
But it does not die away as the latter does, nor surrender itself easily to
abatement, and it conceals itself much more effectually.
While it is relatively easy to moderate the fires of false enthusiasm, it is
infinitely more difficult to bring back infatuation into the realm of reality.
It goes beyond all bonds of reason and exhibits its lack of perception in every
act.
It is infinitely more dangerous, first for the reasons we have already given,
and also for its deplorable effect upon the judgment, which it so obscures that
one is able to see nothing but the attractive side of the subject in which one
is bound up.
Our
featured links related to American Success, Success Secrets, Success Quote
