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There is a road for all endeavors of life. There
is a road to health, happiness and long life which is open to all
with no obstructions to progress save those we create or those we
fail to remove when found. There is a road to Success and
Prosperity. All of these roads are open to every human
resident of earth, but few are sure which road they wish to take.
A great majority seem to be on the Broad Highway to Nowhere.
They resemble the traveler who asked for a ticket to
Springfield. The agent inquired if his destination was Springfield,
Massachusetts, Illinois or Missouri, and the traveler replied:
"Doesn't matter, whichever is the cheapest."
Most people desire health, happiness and success,
but many take the road which calls for the least thought and
effort. The road to health is the most important of all
roads to find. Study the maps and guide books of this road
as you would the maps and guidebooks of Europe if you were
planning a trip abroad. Give it careful attention or you will
find yourself on the road to Nowhere which leads through the
swamps of ill health and disappointment and ends at the graveyard.
When you have found the road to Health, you will
find that you are likewise on the road to Happiness, for the roads
to Health and Happiness are virtually one and the same.
More than half the world think that there are only
four salient things in life: bed and three meals a day. Many
employers wonder how their employees get home at night, and are
apt to attribute their efforts to instinct and not to mental
effort. Many seem afraid of thinking, for fear they will run
out of thought.
When you make up your mind to do a certain thing
and are convinced that it is the proper thing to do and that it
deserves success; when you are satisfied in your own mind, do not
ask everyone you meet his idea about it. To do so is
equivalent to consulting the sign post on the road to
Nowhere. Remember that the man who really desires to do
right has, in the long run, twice the power of the man who wants
to stop him. All the good in the world remains after the
finder passes on. It's not lost --it's just waiting around
for some other finder to use it. The road to Success cannot
be found by liars. Liars travel on the road to
Nowhere. A liar must keep books and note down the kind of
lie he told and to whom he told it. A truthful man has only
to refresh his memory. It saves bookkeeping on conversation.
Truth is a vital power in prolonging life, for
those who deal in untruths (Mark Twain says there are eight hundred
and sixty-nine kinds of liars) are always more or less worried for
fear of being found out, and worry constantly travels the road to
old age.
If you are ashamed to walk the streets with
yourself; ashamed to go to bed with yourself, you are on the road
to Nowhere. Those on the road to Success keep confidence
with themselves and their fellow-men. Nature is on
the side of the honest man and works with him.
The secrets of Nature are revealed to the honest man, the man with
a clean conscience and a clear vision. Honesty and integrity
are powerful mental and moral disinfectants.
Honest endeavor is an ingredient of God's dynamite
to blast open the secrets of Nature. Nature never jokes,
never plays tricks on those searching for knowledge, but rewards
them with its rarest blessings. Those who use God's
dynamite, honest endeavor, invariably receive their reward;
perhaps not in the form of the Legion of Honor, but certainly in
the Honor of Legions of earth's worthwhile people.
Those on the road to nowhere will find life
anything but attractive. The only consolation for them as
well as their fellow-men lies in the probability that, through
having followed the wrong road, they will die young.
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