You will always get more pleasure out of the Game if you are a Player instead of a Bystander.
All along the streets of any town or city are lined the Bystanders. Inside the Stores and Offices and Factories are housed the Workers. The Workers are the ones who support the Bystanders.
Let no man do for you what you ought to do for Yourself.
To be the mere title-holder of a Job counts for little. You must be the Job in every sense of the word or else you may be classed with the Bystanders.
The worst thing about the Bystander is that he Contributes neither to himself nor other people — he is a Blank.
The surest law in the world is the Law of Compensation. Its Justice works continually. If you do a Service you get back a Service. If you do Nothing you get back Nothing. Mere existence is not Living.
Into your twenty-four hours put Work and Play and Rest, but at no time be a Bystander.
Tongues
One of the most difficult things in this world to get control of is the human Tongue. Kipling never said anything truer than when he wrote that “Man may hold most any post if he’ll only hold his Tongue.”
Before you set your Tongue to action get it under perfect Control.
A single Tongue can do more harm in the world than a Battalion of Soldiers. For Soldiers can kill but Bodies while the Tongue can kill Reputations and Characters. It is too bad that we have no laws to curb Tongues. Shakespeare powerfully pictured in the character of Iago the terrible consequences following in the path of an evil Tongue. Iago not only destroyed the Reputation and pure Character of Desdemona, but he finally, through Othello, killed her body.
Compel your Tongue to speak Helpful Messages or else keep it still.
Make it a rule of your life to use your Tongue for high purposes alone. Resolve to speak in no way of any man or woman unless you can speak of the good qualities of that man or woman. No one ever gained Happiness out of injuring the Feelings or Character of someone else. No one ever failed to get Happiness by speaking well of other people.
The Golden Rule applied to the Tongue comprises one of the real Golden Rules of Conduct.
The “George” Habit
If you only realized how much you min in Pleasure, Growth and increased Power every time you push Responsibility upon someone else, you would never again let a chance pass to do what comes to you to do.
Once for all, break the “Let George Do It” habit. When a task steps up before you — take hold of it and do it Yourself.
In every community — in this community — there are always big, ready, generous, willing people quick to respond to any call for Service at the moment someone else shirks. They are the “Georges.” And if you will let them perform your work, they will do it. But when they do — you move Backward. YOU — be a “George.”
Work that should be done by Yourself is never done so well when shifted to someone else.
You are either a Do or a Let Do. It is a personal matter of Success or Failure as to which you are.
The “Let George Do It” folks are easily spotted. They line the sidewalks of every busy street. They do the “easy” jobs in the Stores and Factories. They are the fellows that board at Jails and Alms Houses and keep the Lawyers busy. They are the men and women that are “too busy” to do what is asked and required of them to do.
Don’t “Let George Do It.” Do it YOURSELF.
Friends
Friends are essentials. Just as air and food and clothing are essentials. For is not he who has no Friends lacking and lonely and useless? Who ever heard of a useless man having Friends? Like attracts like. No one ever secured a Friend without first vibrating the Friend spirit within himself.
To get a Friend you must be a Friend.
The Friend art is a Heart art — all else cheapens it. He to whom we talk and confide and trust is but another of us transplanted where courage and cheer and kindness is ever alert. We go to our Friend and he lifts us up and we feel him coming back to his own again — in ourselves.
A Friend is a mutual partner with whom we need no signed agreements.
It is said of Carlyle and Tennyson that they would sit for hours together without the passing of a word and then separate. And both inspired and uplifted because of the meeting! To reach the priceless treasure veins of a Friend it is necessary to go deep. In the presence of real Friends a sort of Divinity hovers.
Back of the knowledge that you have a Friend is the secret of your ability to press on and win at your plans.
The glory of Friend joy depends not in numbers. Have but one real Friend — and it is enough! The one that will not refuse to understand you, or protect you, but that through the solid and harsh hour of test, will gladly be the other half of the fight with you.
He is your Friend who brings out of you the best of which you are capable.
You and your Friend plan no Parades. You are as you are. The sincerity of Service leads you on — makes each day as certain of Success as though it had already been completed and handed to you. If you are in doubt as to what you ought to be in the world, set yourself to the task of making of yourself a great Friend. Remembering that —
A lifetime is all too short in which to be a Friend and get Friends.
Play
To you who early learn the value of Play applied to your life, and to you who learn just when to apply it, there is opened a road, both wide and short into the town of Peace, Power and Plenty.
Play.
Play stretches the Muscles, rests and soothes the Nerves, stirs the Blood and Clears the Brain. Play Stays the Hand of Age and transplants Youth all along through the advancing Years.
Play.
Play lifts the Burdens from people’s shoulders — Smoothes out the Wrinkles from their Faces and starts Smiles and Joy anew.
Play.
Play is a Strangler of Worry, an Enemy of Ill-Health and a mighty Force in the Creating of Clean, Strong Thinking. Play is Insurance against Failure.
Play.
Play at outdoor Sports. Play at your Books. Play with your “kiddies” if you have them, and with other people’s “kiddies” if you have none yourself. Play before you start your day and Play at its Close. And occasionally “skip” a day that you may also Play.
Play.
Play hard when you do Play. But never Play when you Work and never Work when you Play. Neither make Play out of Work nor Work out of Play.
Your Mother
The sweetest word in the Language of Languages is that of — Mother. There is in each letter of this word a wealth of music so Divine — there are vibrating chords of Love so Angelic — that the whole world often pays Homage to Mothers whom it honors.
Nancy Hanks — the Mother of Lincoln; Frances Willard and Jane Addams — Mothers to the Motherless; Queen Victoria — the Mother of a Nation of Mothers.
You — whoever you are — your greatest Asset is your Mother. You — bankrupt, discouraged, failure-riddled, hope-wasted, heart-wrenched, self-estranged — there remains still a Day, glorious in Sunsets for you if you will but get back again, in