Successward A Young Mans Bk Fo

Author : Edward Bok
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781983426582
Total Pages : 92 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (265 download)

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Download or read book Why I Believe in Poverty As the Richest Experience That Can Come to a Boy written by Edward Bok and published by . This book was released on 2017-12-30 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: He must know with what he has to work; and once sure of his tools, he must learn the thing he has set for himself to do, having a distinct purpose in view, and, being fully conscious that he is right and capable, not allowing himself to be swerved from his aim. After acquiring true knowledge of himself, I know of nothing so valuable to a young man as an absolute distinctness of purpose, and then pursuing that purpose to success... "I believe in poverty as a condition to experience, to go through, and then to get out of: not as a condition to stay in. "That's all very well," some will say; "easy enough to say, but how can you get out of it?" No one can definitely tell another that. No one told me. No two persons can find the same way out. Each must find his way for himself. That depends on the boy. I was determined to get out of poverty because my mother was not born in it, could not stand it, and did not belong in it. This gave me the first essential: a purpose. Then I backed up the purpose with effort and a willingness to work, and to work at anything that came my way, no matter what it was, so long as it meant "the way out." I did not pick and choose: I took what came, and did it in the best way I knew how; and when I didn't like what I was doing I still did it well while I was doing it, but I saw to it that I didn't do it any longer than I had to do it. I used every rung in the ladder as a rung to the one above. It meant effort, of course, untiring, ceaseless, and unsparing, and it meant work, hard as nails. But out of the effort and the work came the experience; the upbuilding; the development; the capacity to understand and sympathize; the greatest heritage that can come to a boy. And nothing in the world can give that to a boy, so that it will burn into him, as will poverty. "That is why I believe so strongly in poverty, the greatest blessing in the way of the deepest and fullest experience that can come to a boy. But, as I repeat: always as a condition to work out of, not to stay in." "THE first, the most essential, and the greatest element of success with a young man starting out to make a career is a correct knowledge of himself. He should, before he attempts anything, understand himself. He should study himself. He should be sure that, no matter whom else he may misunderstand, he has a correct knowledge of his own nature, his own character, and his own capabilities. And it is because so few young men have this knowledge of self that so many make disastrous failures, or fail in achieving what they set out for themselves at the beginning. "Every man in this world is created differently; no two are alike. Therefore, the nature, the thoughts, the character, the capacity of one man is utterly unlike that of another. What one man can understand another cannot. The success of one man indicates nothing to a second man. What one is capable of doing is beyond the power of another. Hence it is important that, first of all, a young man should look into himself, find out what has been given him, and come to a clear understanding of what he can do and what he cannot do. "It is one of the most pitiable sights imaginable to see, as one does so constantly, young men floundering and fluttering from one phase of life to another, unable to fasten upon any one, simply because a knowledge of themselves is absent. The result is that we see so many round men trying to fit themselves into square holes." CONTENTS I A Correct Knowledge of Himself II What, Really, is Success? III The Young Man in Business IV His Social Life and Amusements V "Sowing his Wild Oats" VI In Matters of Dress VII His Religious Life VIII His Attitude Toward Women IX The Question of Marriage