The first requirement of effective living is that we should have some sort of aim. General speaking, the difference between a successful person and an unsuccessful one is that the former knows what he wants, and bends every efforts towards securing that end, while the latter has only a vague idea of what it is he is trying to do with his life. Such a person may have daydreams in plenty, may wish vaguely to be and do this, that, and the other, but that is a vastly different thing from having a definite objective in living—an all-constraining aim towards which all interest and effort are directed.
Ask half a dozen people what their aim in life is. You will be amazed to discover how greatly most of them will be taken by surprise at the question. What is your own dominant aim/ What do you want to do and be, more than anything else in the world? Unless you can answer this question, at once in a few crisp sentences, you have not really started on the path of successful living.
The aim need not be anything very startling like making a fortune, or establishing a nation-wide chain of business, or writing a best-seller. It may be to widen your general culture by ordered and regular reading. It may be to become as efficient as you possibly can be in your own job, even though that job is a limited one. It may be engage in some sort of voluntary social service. It may be lay in your own home the basis of a truly happy family.
Any one of these aims could become an engrossing and satisfying pursuit, greatly enriching your own life, and that of the community in which you live. The human spirit is capable of almost inconceivable triumphs. We shall save ourselves some unnecessary frustration and heart-break, however, if we choose an aim which is reasonably within the scope of the powers with which we have been endowed.
Once the aim is fixed, we must be willing to undergo the necessary discipline, and attain the necessary knowledge and competency to fulfill it. Somebody once said:” Genius is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration.” Many people fail to achieve their object because, while enamoured of the aim, they are less enamoured of the effort required in its fulfillment. They think how lovely it would be to play like Paderewski, but they are not willing to practice long hours daily as he did. They dream of writing a best-seller, or of having their name in lights, but imagine that such things can be achieved simply by thinking about them.
Whatever our aim, we need an insatiable thirst for knowledge about it. On the tombstone of a famous scholar are the words:” He died learning.” Learned as he was, he never imagined that he knew everything that was to be known. But mere theoretical knowledge is not enough. The runner needs to know all about the science of starting, about poise, about breathing. But he learns to run by running. So , too, the artist will learn about perspective, anatomy, color-blending and much besides, but he perfects his art by painting!
No aim can be achieved without determination. The difficulties that can be overcome, the problems that can be solved, and that success that can be achieved by the exercise of the will, are simply astonishing. Here lies one of the truly dynamic powers of human spirit. But coupled with the will there must be an emotional drive of imagination, too. The interest and enthusiasm with which we give ourselves to the task in hand determine to a large extent the measure of success we shall achieve. We do best those things which we love doing.
