The Art of Manliness - Manvotionals - Brett McKay [48]
Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends.
‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be that we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew;
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
“There is nothing more to be esteemed than a manly firmness and decision of character.” —William Hazlitt
A Highly Developed Power of Choosing
FROM THE BUSINESS PHILOSOPHER, 1909
Of the two elements constituting Will—choice and that persistence of effort which brings about a realization of the choice—we need to note in reference to a highly developed power of choosing several important characteristics. First, the capability to actually make a choice—a decisive, fixed, definite choice. So far as possible, the choice should be consciously made. We should realize that we are rendering a decision—consciously linking our lives in the chain of destiny.
Second, the choice, when made, should represent our actual feelings. It should be the expression of our predominant desires. I hold that the Will, in choosing, should be a servant and not a dictator, a slave and not a master.
Third, having chosen one of several alternatives, all the rest should be banished from the mind. The man of developed power of choice may hesitate long; yet having picked one plan from the many, the many will be forgotten. His mind is now as free from their influence as if they never had been. Doubt is over. Hesitancy is over. “The die is cast.”
And here we have one of the great psychic elements which distinguishes the man of executive ability from the common man. That foe to all action—regret—does not reach him. He will hesitate, doubt, compare, discriminate, speculate, and reconsider before a choice is made—but not afterwards. But the man of inferior executive ability—though having made a decision, though having picked his course—keeps on comparing, deciding, doubting, and picking. And though having decided over and over many times, he still hesitates in the execution for fear of a mistake in the planning, for fear that he has blundered in the choice.
THE EXECUTIVE QUALITY
But the man with a trained will, having decided once, never turns back—never reconsiders. He says to his memory in reference to any other choice he might have made “forget it.” Before making the choice he saw many roads that he might take. But after making it he sees but one.
Fourth, having made a choice, having decided upon a plan, we must have the courage to stand by it. The man of high executive ability is not terrified, as is the average man, by the fact of a mistake—and the probability of more to follow. He is not frightened to death because of a failure. Defeat to him is nothing more than delay.
Does the successful man never make mistakes? He does. Does he never choose the wrong course? Sometimes. Does he never blunder in his decisions? Often. How, then, does he succeed? First, by having a predominance of correct decisions. Second, by enforcing these with unerring precision and celerity of movement.
SUPPOSE YOU BLUNDER?
Your man of high executive ability, of developed power of choice, of keen capacity in the forming of a plan, knows that he will make many mistakes, many blunders, many errors, many bad decisions. He knows that after the work is all