The Law of Success: In Sixteen Lessons. A to Z Classics

yourself boresome, ridiculous and annoying to people of culture and understanding. Self-confidence is something which should never be proclaimed or announced except through intelligent performance of constructive deeds.

      If you have Self-confidence those around you will discover this fact. Let them make the discovery. They will feel proud of their alertness in having made the discovery, and you will be free from the suspicion of egotism. Opportunity never stalks the person with a highly developed state of egotism, but brick-bats and ugly remarks do. Opportunity forms affinities much more easily and quickly with Self-confidence than it does with egotism. Self-praise is never a proper measure of self-reliance. Bear this in mind and let your Self-confidence speak only through the tongue of constructive service rendered without fuss or flurry.

      Self-confidence is the product of knowledge. Know yourself, know how much you know (and how little), why you know it, and how you are going to use it. “Four-flushers” come to grief, therefore, do not pretend to know more than you actually do know. There’s no use of pretense, because any educated person will measure you quite accurately after hearing you speak for three minutes. What you really are will speak so loudly that what you “claim” you are will not be heard.

      If you heed this warning the last four pages of this one lesson may mark one of the most important turning-points of your life.

      Believe in yourself, but do not tell the world what you can do-SHOW IT!

      You are now ready for Lesson Four, which will take you the next step up the Ladder of Success.

Discontentment

      An After-the-Lesson Visit With the Author

      

      The marker stands at the Entrance Gate of Life and writes “Poor Fool” on the brow of the wise man and “Poor Sinner” on the brow of the saint.

      The supreme mystery of the universe is life! We come here without our consent, from whence we know not! We go away without our consent, whither, we know not!

      We are eternally trying to solve this great riddle of “LIFE,” and, for what purpose and to what end?

      That we are placed on this earth for a definite reason there can be no doubt by any thinker. May it not be possible that the power which placed us here will know what to do with us when we pass on beyond the Great Divide?

      Would it not be a good plan to give the Creator who placed us here on earth, credit for having enough intelligence to know what to do with us after we pass on; or, should we assume the intelligence and the ability to control the future life in our own way? May it not be possible that we can co-operate with the Creator very intelligently by assuming to control our conduct on this earth to the end that we may be decent to one another and do all the good we can in all the ways we can during this life, leaving the hereafter to one who probably knows, better than we, what is best for us?

      The artist has told a powerful story in the picture at the top of this page.

      From birth until death the mind is always reaching out for that which it does not possess.

      The little child, playing with its toys on the floor, sees another child with a different sort of toy and immediately tries to lay hands on that toy.

      The female child (grown tall) believes the other woman’s clothes more becoming than her own and sets out to duplicate them.

      The male child (grown tall) sees another man with a bigger collection of railroads or banks or merchandise and says to himself: “How fortunate! How fortunate! How can I separate him from his belongings?”

      F. W. Woolworth, the Five and Ten Cent Store king, stood on Fifth Avenue in New York City and gazed upward at the tall Metropolitan Building and said: “How wonderful! I will build one much taller.” The crowning achievement of his life was measured by the Woolworth Building. That building stands as a temporary symbol of man’s nature to excel the handiwork of other men. A MONUMENT TO THE VANITY OF MAN, WITH BUT LITTLE ELSE TO JUSTIFY ITS EXISTENCE!

      The little ragged newsboy on the street stands, with wide-open mouth, and envies the business man as he alights from his automobile at the curb and starts into his office. “How happy I would be,” the newsboy says to himself, “if I owned a Lizzie.” And, the business man seated at his desk inside, thinks how happy he would be if he could add another million dollars to his already overswollen bank roll.

      The grass is always sweeter on the other side of the fence, says the jackass, as he stretches his neck in the attempt to get to it.

      Turn a crowd of boys into an apple orchard and they will pass by the nice mellow apples on the ground. The red, juicy ones hanging dangerously high in the top of the tree look much more tempting, and up the tree they will go.

      The married man takes a sheepish glance at the daintily dressed ladies on the street and thinks how fortunate he would be if his wife were as pretty as they. Perhaps she is much prettier, but he misses that beauty because-well, because “the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.” Most divorce cases grow out of man’s tendency to climb the fence into the other fellow’s pastures.

      Happiness is always just around the bend; always in sight but just out of reach. Life is never complete, no matter what we have or how much of it we possess. One thing calls for something else to go with it.

      Milady buys a pretty hat. She must have a gown to match it. That calls for new shoes and hose and gloves, and other accessories that run into a big bill far beyond her husband’s means.

      Man longs for a home-just a plain little house setting off in the edge of the woods. He builds it, but it is not complete; he must have shrubbery and flowers and landscaping to go with it. Still it is not complete; he must have a beautiful fence around it, with a graveled driveway.

      That calls for a motor car and a garage in which to house it.

      All these little touches have been added, but to no avail! The place is now too small. He must have a house with more rooms. The Ford Coupe must be replaced by a Cadillac sedan, so there will be room for company in the cross country tours.

      On and on the story goes, ad infinitum!

      The young man receives a salary sufficient to keep him and his family fairly comfortable. Then comes a promotion and an advance in salary of a thousand dollars a year. Does he lay the extra thousand dollars away in the savings account and continue living as before? He does nothing of the sort. Immediately he must trade the old car in for a new one. A porch must be added to the house. The wife needs a new wardrobe. The table must be set with better food and more of it. (Pity his poor, groaning stomach.) At the end of the year is he better off with the increase? He is nothing of the sort! The more he gets the more he wants, and the rule applies to the man with millions the same as to the man with but a few thousands.

      The young man selects the girl of his choice, believing he cannot live without her. After he gets her he is not sure that he can live with her. If a man remains a bachelor he wonders why he is so stupid as to deprive himself of the joys of married life. If he marries he wonders how she happened to catch him off guard long enough to “harpoon” him.

      And the god of Destiny cries out “O fool, 0 fool! You are damned if you DO and you are damned if you DON’T.”

      At every crossroad of Life the imps of Discontentment stand in the shadows of the background, with a grin of mockery on their faces, crying out “Take the road of your own choice! We will get you in the end!”

      At last man becomes disillusioned and begins to learn that Happiness and Contentment are not of this world. Then begins the search for the pass-word that will open the door to him in some world of which he knows not. Surely there must be Happiness on the other side of the Great Divide. In desperation his tired, care-worn