How To Make The Best Of Life: From A Young Man's Standpoint

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Title:     How To Make The Best Of Life: From A Young Man's Standpoint
Author: R. M. Ballantyne [More Titles by Ballantyne]

This world is full of niches that have to be filled, of paths that have to be trod, of work that has to be done.

Pouring continually into it there are millions of human beings who are capable of being fitted to fill those niches, to traverse those paths, and to do that work. I venture a step further and assert that every human being, without exception, who arrives at the years of maturity must, in the nature of things, have a particular niche and path and work appointed for him; and just in proportion as a man finds out his exact work, and walks in or strays from his peculiar path, will be the success of his life. He may miss his aim altogether, and his life turn out a failure, because of his self-will, or, perhaps, his mistaken notions; and there are few sights more depressing than that of a round young man rushing into a square hole, except that of a square young man trying to wriggle himself into a round hole. What the world wants is "the right man in the right place." What each man wants is to find his right place.

But the fact that man may, and often does, make a wrong choice, that he may try to traverse the wrong path, to accomplish the wrong work, and do many things in the wrong way, is a clear proof that his course in life is not arbitrarily fixed, that he has been left to the freedom of his own will, and may therefore fall short of the _best_, though he may be fortunate enough to attain the good or the better. Hence devolves upon every one the responsibility of putting and finding an answer to the question--How shall I make the best of life?

And let me say here in passing that I venture to address young men on this subject, not because I conceive myself to be gifted with superior wisdom, but because, being an old man, I stand on the heights and vantage ground of Experience, and looking back, can see the rocks and shoals and quicksands in life's ocean, which have damaged and well-nigh wrecked myself. I would not only try my hand as a pilot to guide, but as, in some sense, a buoy or beacon to warn from dangers that are not only unseen but unsuspected.

Every young man of ordinary common sense will at least aim at what he believes to be best in life, and the question will naturally arise--What _is_ best?

If a youth's chief idea of felicity is to "have a good time;" to enjoy himself to the utmost; to cram as much of sport, fun, and adventure into his early manhood as possible, with a happy-go-lucky indifference as to the future, he is not yet in a frame of mind to consider our question at all. I feel disposed to say to him--in paraphrase--"be serious, man, or, if ye can't be serious, be as serious as ye can," while we consider a subject that is no trifling matter.

What, then, _is_ best? I reply--So to live and work that we shall do the highest good of which we are capable to the world, and, in the doing thereof, achieve the highest possible happiness to ourselves, and to those with whom we are connected. In the end, to leave the world better than we found it.

Now, there is only one foundation on which such a life can be reared, and that foundation is God.

To attempt the building on any other, or to neglect a foundation altogether, is to solicit and ensure disaster.

But supposing, young man, that you agree with me in this; are fully alive to the importance of the question, and are desirous of obtaining all the light you can on it, then I would, with all the earnestness of which I am capable, urge you to begin on this sure foundation by asking God to guide you and open up your way. "Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find." "Commit thy way unto the Lord, and He will bring it to pass." Without this beginning there is, there can be, no possibility of real success, no hope of reaching the best. With it there may still be partial mistake--owing to sin and liability to err-- but there can be no such thing as absolute failure. Man's first prayer in all his plans of life should be--"Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?"

Many people think that they have put up that petition and got no answer, when the answer is obviously before their eyes. It seems to me that God's answers are always indicative, and not very difficult to understand.

An anxious father says--if he does not also pray--"What shall I train my boy to be?" God, through the medium of common sense, replies, Watch your son, observe his tastes, and especially his powers, and train him accordingly. His capacities, whatever they are, were given to him by his Maker for the express purpose of being developed. If you don't develop them, you neglect a clear indication, unless, indeed, it be held that men were made in some haphazard way for no definite purpose at all; but this would be equivalent to making out the Creator to be less reasonable than most of His own creatures!

If a lad has a strong liking for some particular sort of work or pursuit, and displays great aptitude for it, there is no need of an audible voice to tell what should be his path in life. Contrariwise, strong dislike, coupled with incapacity, indicates the path to be avoided with equal precision.

Of course, liking and disliking are not a sufficient indication, for both may be based upon partial ignorance. The sea, as a profession, is a case in point. How many thousands of lads have an intense liking for the idea of a sailor's life! But the liking is not for the sea; it is for some romantic notion of the sea; and the romancer's aptitude for a sea life must at first be taken for granted while his experience is _nil_. He dreams, probably, of majestic storms, or heavenly calms, of coral islands, and palm groves, and foreign lands and peoples. If very imaginative, he will indulge in Malay pirates and wrecks, and lifeboats, and desert islands, on which he will always land safely, and commence a second edition of Robinson Crusoe. But he will scarcely think, till bitter experience compels him, of very long watches in dirty unromantic weather, of holy-stoning the decks, scraping down the masts, and clearing out the coal-hole. Happily for our navy and the merchant service there are plenty of lads who go through all this and stick to it, their love of the ocean is triumphant--but there are a few exceptions!

On the other hand, liking and fitness may be discovered by experience. I know a man who, from childhood, took pleasure in construction and invention. At the age of nine he made a real steam engine which "could go" with steam, and which was small enough to be carried in his pocket. He was encouraged to follow the providential indication, went through all the drudgery of workshops, and is now a successful engineer.

Of course, there are thousands of lads whose paths are not so clearly marked out; but does it not seem reasonable to expect that, with prayer for guidance, and thoughtful consideration on the part of the boy's parents, as well as of the boy himself, the best path in life may be discovered for each?

No doubt there are many difficulties in the way; as when parents are too ambitious, or when sons are obstinate and self-willed, or when both are antagonistic to each other. If, as is not infrequently the case, a youth has no particular taste for any profession, and shows no very obvious capacity for anything, is it not a pretty strong indication that he was meant to tread one of the many subordinate paths of life and be happy therein? All men cannot be generals. Some must be content to rub shoulders with the rank and file. If a lad is fit only to dig in a coal pit or sweep the streets, he is as surely intended to follow these honourable callings as is the captain who has charge of an ocean steamer to follow the _sea_. And even in the selection of these lowly occupations the path is divinely indicated, while the free-will is left to the influence of common sense, so that the robust youth with powerful frame and sinews will probably select the pit, and the comparatively delicate man will prefer the crossing.

I repeat, to say that any creature was called into being for no purpose at all, is to question the wisdom of the Almighty. Even if a babe makes its appearance on this terrestrial scene, and wails out its brief career in a single day, it was sent here for a special purpose, else it would not have been sent, and that purpose must have been fully accomplished, else it would not have died.

To my mind this is an exceedingly cheering view of things, for it encourages the belief that however poor or feeble may have been our efforts to live a good life, these efforts cannot have been made in vain, even although they may fall very far short of the "best." And there is also this very hopeful consideration to comfort us, that the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, that wisdom sometimes proceeds out of the mouths of babes, and that "we little know what great things from little things may rise."

To be sure, that cuts both ways, for, what sometimes are called "little sins" may result in tremendous evil, but, equally, efforts that seem insignificant may be the cause of great and unexpected blessing.

If, then, as I sincerely believe, every living being has a special work to do--or, rather, has a variety of appropriate paths in any one of which he may walk with more or less advantage to himself and his fellow-men--it behoves every young man to find out what path is the best one for him, and to walk in it vigorously. Fatalism is folly. No one believes in it. At least no one in this country acts upon it. When I say that every being has a special work to do, I don't mean that it has been decreed _exactly_ what each man has to do. Were this so, he would have to do it, _nolens volens_, and there would be no such thing as responsibility--for it would be gross injustice to hold a man responsible for that which he could by no means prevent or accomplish. That which has really been decreed is that man shall have free-will and be allowed to exercise that free-will in the conduct of his affairs. It is a most mysterious gift, but there it is--an unquestionable fact--and it must be taken into account in all our reasoning. There is a confusion here into which men are sometimes liable to fall. Man's will is absolutely free, but his action is not so. He may will just as he pleases, but all experience tells us that he may not do just as he pleases. Whether his intentions be good or bad, they are frequently and effectively interfered with, but his will--never.

Seeing, then, that there is a best way for every one, and that there are sundry common sense methods by which the path may be discovered, it may be well to consider for a moment whether there are not some obstacles which stand in the way of a young man's success in life, not only because they are providentially allowed to lie there, but because the young man himself either carelessly or unwittingly has planted them in his own path.

Selfishness is one of those obstacles. And by selfishness I do not mean that gross form of it which secures for the man who gives way to it a bad name, but those subtle phases of it which may possibly be allied with much that is good, amiable, and attractive. It is not unfrequently the consequence of that thoughtlessness which results in evil not less than does want of heart.

Talking too much about oneself and one's own affairs, and being too little interested in the affairs of others, is one aspect of the selfishness to which I refer. Some men, the moment they meet you, begin to talk energetically about what they have been doing, or thinking, or about what they are going to do, and if you encourage them they will go on talking in the same strain, totally forgetting that _you_ may chance to be interested in other things. Such men, if they begin young, and are not checked, soon degenerate into "bores," and no bore, however well-meaning or even religious, ever succeeded in making the best of life. The cure for this is to be found--as usual--in the Scripture: "Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word." And what says the word? "Look not (only) on your own things, but upon the things of others."

I have a friend who was the confidant of a large number of his kindred and of many other people besides. It was said of him that everybody went to him for sympathy and advice. I can well believe it, for he never spoke about himself at all that I can remember. He was not unusually wise or superlatively clever, but he had "a heart at leisure from itself to soothe and sympathise." The consequence was that, in spite of a good many faults, he was greatly beloved. And it is certain, reader, that to gain the affection of your fellow-men is one of the surest steps in the direction of success in life. To be too much concerned in conversation about yourself, your affairs and your opinions will prove to be a mighty obstruction in your way. Perhaps one of the best methods of fighting against this tendency is to resolve, when meeting with friends, _never_ to begin with self, but _always_ with them. But it is hard to crucify self! This mode of procedure, be it observed, would not be a hypocritical exhibition of interest where none was felt, but an honest attempt to snub self by deliberately putting your friends' interests before your own.

It is probable that we are not sufficiently alive to the influence of comparatively insignificant matters on success in life. Illegible handwriting, for instance, may go far to retard or arrest a youth's success. It sometimes interferes with friendly intercourse. I once had a friend whose writing was so illegible, and the cause of so much worry in mere decipherment, that I was constrained to give up epistolary correspondence with him altogether. There can be little doubt that many a would-be author fails of success because of the illegibility of his penmanship, for it is impossible that an editor or publisher can form a fair estimate of the character or value of a manuscript which he has much difficulty in reading.

There is one thing which men are prone to do, and which it would be well that they should not do, and that is, "nail their colours to the mast" in early youth. The world is a school. We are ever learning--or ought to be--and, in some cases, "never coming to a knowledge of the truth!" Is not this partly owing to that fatal habit of nailing the colours? I do not for a moment advocate the holding of opinions loosely. On the contrary, whether a man be young or old, whenever he gets hold of what he believes to be true, he ought to grasp it tenaciously and with a firm grip, but he should never "nail" it. Being fallible, man is liable to more or less of error; and, therefore, ought to hold himself open to correction--ay, even to conversion. New or stronger light may convince him that he has been wrong--and if a man will not change when he is convinced, or "fully persuaded in his own mind," he has no chance of finding out how to make the best of life, either from a young, or middle-aged, or old man's standpoint. Why, new or stronger light--if he would let it illumine him--might even convince him that his opinion was not only true, but involved much greater and grander truths than he supposed. It is difficult to go more minutely into details, even if it were advisable to do so. I may fittingly conclude by saying that the sum of all that might be written is comprehended in the statement that obedience to God in all things is the sure and only road to success.

Of all the bright and glorious truths with which our fallen world is enlightened, there is one--a duplex truth--which lies at the foundation of everything. It is unchangeable. Without it all other facts would be valueless, and I would recommend every man, woman, and child to nail it to the mast without hesitation, namely--"God is love," and "Love is the fulfilling of the law."

[The end]
R. M. Ballantyne's short story: How To Make The Best Of Life: From A Young Man's Standpoint

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