The outstanding features of the present day are the keenness of competition in every walk of life, and the rapidity with which events occur, creating a hurry which is prejudicial to the careful ordering of one's own life.
Competition has always been very keen, and the cry has ever been for the return of those good old days when competition was less. If they ever existed, it was before my time.
Everything, however, is comparative. With larger numbers of people there must be more competition, but there are also more opportunities, more employment, more people to feed, and more to clothe.
But with the advance of education, particularly of technical knowledge, the competition has become more intense in the higher branches of industrial and intellectual activity; still, there is room, and ample room, on the top. The lower rungs of the ladder are well occupied, but the numbers thin off as we approach the top, and this must be more and more the case as education advances.
The hurry of the present day is prejudicial to that thoroughness which is necessary if we are to attain efficiency. The hurry of everyday life becomes more and more conspicuous. Living at high pressure, in this super-heated atmosphere we are apt to lose our sense of proportion, and crowd our minds with thoughts, schemes and projects regardless of our power of assimilation and arrangement. Our minds are apt to become mere lumber rooms, into which everything is tossed. Many things are forgotten, and cannot be found when wanted. How much better it would be for ourselves and for the world at large if we could live with more deliberation, if we could specialise more, be more intense within a more limited range of thought and activity, less casual, more thorough in the commonplaces of life. Life would not lose in interest or picturesqueness, and it would gain in symmetry and value. It may be said that while it might add to the effectiveness of life, it would deprive it of much of its colour and romance; this would not, however, necessarily follow. On the contrary, greater effectiveness would open out new avenues for thought and action, new spheres of usefulness, more refined and elevating in their character, and more satisfying in their results.
These appear to be surroundings in which we have to work out the problems of our lives, and this leads us to the consideration of how we are to achieve success under these conditions of competition and hurry.
Success in Life.
There are various kinds of success in life: business success, social success, and success in public affairs. Perhaps to the ordinary individual business success is the most important; it is a source of happiness, promotes social success, and opens up avenues of public usefulness.
If we look back and endeavour to trace the careers of those with whom we have been associated when young, I think we shall observe that those who have been most successful in their business careers have, with few exceptions, not been the brilliant and clever boys, but rather those of duller intellect, who have had the gift of steady application. This faculty is not born in us; we are by nature casual, and apt to follow the lines of thought and endeavour which require the least labour, and offer the most varied interest. We hate the grind of sustained effort, it bores us, and we long for something new. This dislike of prolonged application, and desire for change, has made more shipwrecks of business careers than perhaps any other cause. In its craving for change and excitement, it leads to speculation as a possible road to wealth without effort.