A man should early take an inventory of his ability and locate himself where he belongs. If he has but one talent he should not try to train with the ten-talent man. He should simply try to make the most of his one talent.
It is impossible to make one talent do the work of ten talents, no matter how ambitious, or how much energy one may fling into his work.
A great brain does a great thing easily. We all do our best work without overstraining. It is dangerous to over-tax one’s faculties.
I have seen a college student who has overstrained his brain until he has seriously marred his mental power in the foolish effort to try to head his class when he was not a natural scholar. He seemed to think that by making a superhuman effort, studying all the time when others were at play, during holidays and Sundays, always plugging, plugging, plugging,--he could overcome any handicap. While he managed to come pretty near leading his class he never completely rallied from the effects of overstraining his brain.
It is a great thing to be able to measure our talents, to understand ourselves so thoroughly that we will undertake just so much as we are able to accomplish, and will not aim at the unattainable.
All about us we see people who seem to have no special zest in life, no great enthusiasm for anything; there is a great disappointment somewhere in their lives. Why are they so unhappy?
No one loses his interest in life, or becomes indifferent to his work unless he has been thwarted in the carrying out of his ambition, or for some other reason has been unable to find his right place in life. Wherever we see discontent, unhappiness, unrest, we may be sure that the person exhibiting these conditions is a round peg in a square hole, or has not been able to realize his dreams. For some reason his heart has been cheated of its ideal. A thwarted ambition seems to wrench the whole nature out of its normal orbit.
There is no suffering, except remorse, so fatal as that which comes from the consciousness of blasted hope, stifled aspiration. To be conscious that one possesses decided ability for some particular calling, and to be compelled by circumstances, year after year, to be chained to drudgery which the heart loathes, requires supreme courage. To feel that there is no probability, or even possibility, of ever being able to express that great hungry longing, pent up in the heart, filling it almost to bursting, to drag through the weary years trying to be cheerful and hopeful and helpful to those one loves and yet to feel that his devotion to them has made the other thing impossible to him, to suffer in silence disappointment which makes the heart sick, is the greatest test of real manhood or womanhood.