He is forever standing in his own light, and thinks the whole world has picked him out to be the scapegoat for everything that is bad.
He says: “Everybody and everything is against me and I can not succeed. It’s no use trying.”
Before you give up to despair, friend, bear this in mind:
You say you have not the same opportunities every other man has.
You will not believe that if you stop to think a moment.
The average Colored American has ten times the opportunities his father had, and a hundred times the opportunities his grandfather possessed.
You are one of the average Colored Americans, perhaps. Well then, your grandfather had no opportunities at all. If he had one, he was not permitted to grasp it. Your father had more opportunities than his father, but opportunities were just beginning to show themselves.
You live in a far advanced age when the very air is full of opportunities, and yet you think you have none.
The reason why you are a pessimist is because you want to be. You think it is too much trouble to reach out and take the opportunities offered you, sometimes even forced upon you.
Instead of being a pessimist you ought to laugh and thank God that the bright side of life is always turned toward you, and you can see it by merely turning your eyes in its direction.