Tendency, Not Toil, Makes Fame
¶ Those who have succeeded to fame in any given line are wont to proclaim, "Hard work is the secret of success," and to take great credit unto themselves for the labor they have expended on their own.
It is true of course that all success entails hard work. But the man or woman sufficiently gifted to rise to the heights gets from that gift such a strong inward urge towards its expression that what he does in that direction is not work to him. The long hours, concentration and study devoted to it are more pleasurable than painful to him. He chooses such activities voluntarily.
Nature the Real Artist
¶ Nothing can rightly be called work which one does out of sheer preference. Work never made an actress and work never made a singer where innate talent for these arts was lacking. Nature, the true maker of every famous name, bestows ninety per cent and man, if he hustles, can provide the other very necessary ten. But his sense of humor if not his sense of justice should be sufficient to prevent his trying to rob the Almighty of His due.
Success for All
¶ Every individual who is not feeble-minded can be a success at something in this big world. Every normal-minded individual is able to create, invent, improve, organize, build or market some of the myriads of things the world is crying for. But he will succeed at only those things in which his physiological and psychological mechanisms perform their functions easily and naturally.
Why We Work
¶ Man is, by inclination, very little of a worker. He is, first, a wanter—a bundle of instincts; second, a feeler—a bundle of emotions; last and least, he is a thinker. What real work he does is done not because he likes it but because it serves one of these first two bundles of instincts.
When the desire for leisure is stronger than the other urges, leisure wins. But in all ambitious men and women the desire for other things outweighs the leisure-urge.