All this might have been easily avoided by care and attention; and not only so, but you would improve in your business, and thereby make it become habitual and easy.
You cannot expect to become master of any kind of business, without much care and attention; and this ought to make you more studious in the same, for remember, that there is no business that you will be likely to be called to attend to, now when young, but what (if you should ever have a family of your own) you must attend to the same for yourself, or at least, have it attended to; and therefore it is highly necessary that you should now become master of it.
This is what ought to excite your mind now when young, that you may be well qualified to be mistress of your own family; and even if you should never have any family, this will do you no harm.
2. Never flatter yourself that you know how the business should be done better than your teachers; therefore hear with patience their instructions, and always be submissive to their directions.
Never contradict them in any sense whatever; but if you think that any other way, different from what they direct, would do better, you may inform them of it, but do it with the greatest modesty and circumspection; and if they comply with what you say, it is well, but if they do not, add no more, but obey as you were first directed.
Always make the business of the day the first object, and then if you have any leisure hours, you may improve them to the best advantage and for your own profit and satisfaction.
Never allow yourself to be peevish and fretful about your work, food, dress, or any thing of the like nature, even if the business does not go on to suit you; for this will only make the business more irksome and fatiguing, without any kind of benefit to yourself.
3. Do not expect even from your best endeavors wholly to escape without censure. For the mind of youth is so fickle, it would be very strange if you did not sometimes go astray, and not do so well as you might; and if you do, you must expect reproof, and rebuke, and you ought to take it kindly, and endeavour to do better for the future.
But even if you should always do your best, you must expect that you will sometimes do wrong, even for want of knowledge; and you cannot expect that people will always exercise that patience, so but what they will many times chide you, and find fault, even when you have done your best. All this you ought to bear with patience without a murmuring word: for if you are conscious to yourself that you have done as well as you could, even a sharp rebuke need not trouble you; for you may gain some knowledge by it, and therefore it may terminate for your own advantage. Besides, if you bear it with patience, and try to convince them by your future conduct that you used your best endeavors to have every thing done as it should be, this will have a tendency to convince them of their error, and cause them to exercise more patience for the future.