Make Fun Of Life!

The Thumb

10/1/2021

The Thumb

Hail to the thumb, the useful thumb,
     The grasper, the holder, the doer of deeds,
Where fingers are futile and tools succumb,
     Stolid, ungainly, the thumb succeeds.

Hail to the thumb, the homely thumb;
     Rings and jewels are not for it,
Compliments, dainty and frolicsome,
     For fingers are suited, for thumbs unfit.

Hail to the thumb, the modest thumb;
     Gently und calmly it hides away,
Never for it a banner and drum,
     Or praise at the end of a strenuous day.

And hail to the men who are like the thumb;
     Men who are never sung by a bard,
Men who are laboring, modestly dumb,
     Faithfully doing the work that is hard.

Some day, men of the toiling thumb,
     Men of the modest, invincible worth,
Some day your high reward will come,
     From the Hand of the Lord of Heaven and Earth!

by Author Unknown

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Hard Work

9/30/2021

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Picture of a man who works as a tile setter or tile installer, first standing with hands on hips and looking serious, then holding a level and a large tile, then smiling broadly and laughing.

Hard Work

It’s hard to keep smiling when troubles are piling
     Their weight on your neck till it’s sprained;
It’s hard to keep grinning when others are winning
     The prizes for which you have strained.
It’s hard to be cheery on days wet and dreary,
     When everything near you looks drowned;
It’s hard to be sunny when all of your money
     Is sunk in a hole in the ground.
It’s hard to keep laughing when wearily quaffing
     The flagon of grief to the dregs,
It’s harder to frolic when you have the colic,
     Or gout at the end of your legs.
But how will it aid you, when woe has waylaid you,
     To rumble and grumble and swear?
There’s nothing that’s healing in kicking the ceiling,
     Or biting the rungs from a chair.
It’s hard to look pleasant when anguish is present,
     And yet it is strictly worth while;
Not all of your scowling and fussing and growling
     Can show off your grit like a smile.

by Walt Mason: “Terse Verse” (1917)

Walter S. ‘Walt’ Mason was born on 4 May 1862 in Columbus, Ontario, Canada. He started out as a farmhand and a laborer, but soon became a newspaperman, eventually after many years writing a syndicated column, “Rippling Rhymes.” Walter S. ‘Walt’ Mason passed on at 77 years of age on 22 June 1939 in La Jolla, California, United States of America.

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Don’t Knock

9/4/2021

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Picture of a worker wearing a hardhat at a construction site, making a hole in a wood beam using a manual hand-drill, with construction equipment, a blue sky, and fluffy white clouds in the background.

Don’t Knock

You can’t saw wood with a hammer, my son,
     Nor polish a marble with knocks;
You’ll not long deceive with great clamor, my son,
     Nor profit by throwing of rocks;
You never can rise to the heights of success
     By pulling down others who’ve gained it.
By steadily working through storm and stress -
     They’ve buckled to work, not disdained it.

You can’t saw wood with a hammer, my son,
     Nor polish a diamond with bricks;
The world soon tires of mere glamor, my son,
     And punctures the sharpest of tricks.
You never can rise by mere envy or hate,
     Or growling at those who’ve succeeded
By honestly toiling both early and late -
     ’Tis workers, not shirkers, that’s needed.

You can’t saw wood with a hammer, my son,
     Nor fasten bridge timbers with tacks;
The world soon shuns a wind-jammer, my son;
     You can’t build to last with mere wax.
To win you must hustle with might and with main,
     And give recompense for your wages,
For those who strive hardest deserve greatest gain -
     True worth is the best of all gauges.

You can’t saw wood with a hammer, my son,
     Nor write for the future in sand;
The world asks more than mere clamor, my son -
     It’s work of the brain and the hand
So labor away with a whistle and laugh,
     And scatter good cheer as you labor.
Don’t worry - the world soon winnows out chaff -
     It’s the wheat that you sell to your neighbor.

by Will M. Maupin: as published in “The Commoner” newspaper

William Major ‘Will’ Maupin was born on 31 August 1863 in Callaway County, Missouri, United States of America. Early in his career he was a roaming reporter, traveling to places as distant as Winnipeg, Canada and Caracas, Venezuela. He became a newspaper columnist, editor, newspaper founder, civil servant, and book author, eventually settling in Nebraska. He worked for some 40 newspapers over his lifetime, including the “Omaha World-Herald,” “The Commoner,” and the “Hastings Democrat.” His published books include “Limnings” (1898), being the collected writings from his newspaper column of the same name, as well as “Whether Common or Not: A Little Book of Sketches and Verse” (1903), “Kiddies Six: A Modest Volume of Verse” (1911), “Nebraska Facts” (1918), and “Sunny Side Up: Poems” (1926). William Major ‘Will’ Maupin passed on at 84 years of age on 8 June 1948 in Nebraska, United States of America.

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Work

7/22/2021

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Picture of a woman leading a flock of geese, with a trained collie dog following at the rear of the flock to keep any of the birds from wandering off

Work

Let me but do my work from day to day,
In field or forest, at the desk or loom,
In roaring market-place or tranquil room;
Let me but find it in my heart to say,
When vagrant wishes beckon me astray,
   “This is my work; my blessing, not my doom;
   “Of all who live, I am the one by whom
“This work can best be done in the right way.”
Then shall I see it not too great, nor small,
   To suit my spirit and to prove my powers;
   Then shall I cheerful greet the laboring hours,
And cheerful turn, when the long shadows fall
     At eventide, to play and love and rest,
     Because I know for me my work is best.

by Henry van Dyke: “The Poems of Henry Van Dyke” (1933)

Henry Jackson van Dyke, Junior was born on 10 November 1852 in Germantown, Pennsylvania, United States of America. He became a Presbyterian minister, an educator, a short story writer, a poet, and an essayist. Henry Jackson van Dyke, Junior passed on at 80 years of age on 10 April 1933 in Princeton, New Jersey, United States of America.

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Words of Harlow H. Curtice

7/17/2020

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Words of Harlow H. Curtice

Do it the hard way! Think ahead of your job. Then nothing in the world can keep the job ahead from reaching out for you. Do it better than it need be done. Next time doing it will be child’s play. Let no one or anything stand between you and the difficult task, let nothing deny you this rich chance to gain strength by adversity, confidence by mastery, success by deserving it. Do it better each time. Do it better than anyone else can do it. I know this sounds old-fashioned. It is, but it has built the world.

by Harlow H. Curtice

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Employment and Work

3/6/2020

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Jack

All work and no play
    makes Jack a dull boy;
All play and no work
    makes Jack a mere toy.

by Author Unknown

“I tell you, sir, the only safeguard of order and discipline in the modern world is a standardized worker with interchangeable parts. That would solve the entire problem of management.” -Jean Giraudoux (Hippolyte Jean Giraudoux (1882 - 1944))

“Doctor Lillian Gilbreth, professor of management at Purdue University, studied women in a dress factory. Some of them were limp with fatigue; some bright-eyed and wide awake. Yet all the women had been working the same number of hours. Doctor Gilbreth found that most of the wide-awake ones had plans for the evening - a party or a date - and were anticipating a good time. The tired ones were those who had nothing to look forward to.” -Amy Selwyn: as quoted in “Coronet” magazine

Let us realize that:
the privilege to work is a gift,
the power to work is a blessing,
the love of work is success!
-David O. McKay (David Oman McKay (1873 - 1970))

Boss: The person who is early when you are late and late when you are early.

“Work banishes those three great evils: boredom, vice, and poverty.” -Voltaire (pseudonym of François-Marie Arouet (1694 - 1778))

A young man hired by a supermarket reported for his first day of work. The manager greeted him with a warm handshake and a smile, gave him a broom, and said, “Your first job will be to sweep out the store.” “But I’m a college graduate,” the young man replied indignantly. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know that,” said the manager. “Here, give me the broom - I’ll show you how.”

The first United States Minimum Wage Law was instituted in 1938. The minimum wage was set at 25 cents per hour.

“Work is either fun or drudgery. It depends on your attitude. I like fun.” -Colleen C. Barrett (born 1944)

“Every job has drudgery, whether it is in the home, in the professional school, or in the office. The first secret of happiness is the recognition of this fundamental fact.” -M. C. McIntosh

“It doesn’t matter whose payroll you are on, you are working for yourself.” -Author Unknown

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One manager let employees know how valuable they are with the following memo:

You Arx A Kxy Pxrson

Xvxn though my typxwritxr is an old modxl, it works vxry wxll - xxcxpt for onx kxy. You would think that with all thx othxer kxys functioning propxrly, onx kxy not working would hardly bx noticxd; but just onx kxy out of whack sxxms to ruin thx wholx xffort.

You may say to yoursxlf - Wxll, I’m only onx pxrson. No onx will noticx if I don’t do my bxst. But it doxs makx a diffxrxncx, bxcausx an xffxctivx organization nxxds activx participation by xvxry onx to thx bxst of his or hxr ability.

So, thx nxxt timx you think you arx not important, rxmxmbxr my old typxwritxr. You arx a kxy pxrson.

by Thx Boss

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“The highest reward from your working is not what you get for it but what you become by it.” -Sydney J. Harris (Sydney Justin Harris (1917 - 1986))

Employee: Sir, I’ve been with you for twenty-seven years, and I’ve never before asked for a raise.
Boss: That’s why you’ve been with me for twenty-seven years.

The following was found in an employee handbook: “Be thankful for your problems, because if they were less difficult, someone with less ability and lower pay would have your job.”

The Fable of the Crow and the Rabbit.

A crow was sitting in a tree, doing nothing all day. A small rabbit saw the crow, and asked him, “Can I also sit like you and do nothing all day long?” The crow answered: “Sure, why not.” So, the rabbit sat on the ground under the tree, and took his leisure. Suddenly, a fox appeared, pounced on the rabbit, and ate it. The moral of the story is, to be able to lounge around and do nothing all day, you must be sitting very, very high up.

by Author Unknown

“Variety may be the spice of life, but monotony provides the groceries.” -Author Unknown

Workplace Rules

1. The boss is always right.
2. When the boss is wrong, refer to Rule 1.

by Author Unknown

On the morning of the last day of school, Johnny’s mother went into his bedroom and hollered, “Wake up and get ready for school!” Johnny pulled the sheets up over his face and muttered, “Give me one good reason why I should go to school today.” His mother answered, “Well, for starters, you are the school principal.”

A guy showed up late for work. The boss yelled, “You should’ve been here at 8:30!” The guy replied, “Why? What happened at 8:30?”

Career Advice

Don’t be
A jerk
At work.

by David Hugh Beaumont (born 1966)

“A human being must have occupation, if he or she is not to become a nuisance to the world.” -Dorothy L. Sayers (Dorothy Leigh Sayers (1893 - 1957)): “Are Women Human?” (1938); type of work: address given to a women’s society

“I have to take my paycheck to the bank. It’s too little to go by itself.” -Author Unknown

“If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.” -James Goldsmith (1933 - 1997)

“. . . a fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work.” -Author Unknown: as quoted by Alpheus Cary in a speech (7 October 1824) at Faneuil Hall, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

Personnel Director, speaking to new trainee: “. . . or, if you prefer, you can elect to skip coffee breaks entirely, and retire three years sooner.”

“Give sail to ability.” -Author Unknown: Japanese proverb

“Now, before I agree to take this job,” the young applicant said, “I have one question. Are the hours long?” “Well,” the manager said, “we try our best to keep them limited to sixty minutes.”

A meeting was in progress when all the lights went out. The department head asked everyone present to raise their hands. As soon as everyone complied, the lights went on again. The department head said, “We have just proved the truth of the saying, ‘Many hands make light work.’”

“What we do for a living does not matter as much as how we do it.” -Orison S. Marden (Orison Swett Marden (1848 - 1924))

“Business clothes are naturally attracted to staining liquids. This attraction is strongest just before important meetings.” -Scott Adams (Scott Raymond Adams (born 1957))

Overheard: At the end of the work day, we tell our employees, “You are fired. Come back tomorrow morning, and we’ll re-hire you.”

“There are no menial jobs, only menial attitudes.” -William Bennett (William John Bennett (born 1943))

The boss joined a group of workers in a meeting and told some jokes he’d heard recently. Everybody laughed loudly. Everybody, that is, except Bonnie. When the boss noticed that he was getting no reaction from Bonnie, he said, “What’s the matter, Bonnie? No sense of humor?” “My sense of humor is fine,” she said. “But I don’t have to laugh. I’m starting a job with another company tomorrow.”

Employee Breakroom Notice: Your Mother Does Not Work Here, So You Will Have To Clean Up Your Own Messes.

“Thank God every morning when you get up that you have something to do that day which must be done, whether you like it or not. Being forced to work, and forced to do your best, will breed in you temperance and self-control, diligence and strength of will, cheerfulness and content, and a hundred virtues which the idle never know.” -Charles Kingsley (1819 - 1875)

“Don’t let your superiors know that you are better than they are.” -Arthur Bloch (born 1948)

So, you are thinking of becoming a comedian, musician, artist, song writer, actor, inventor, poet . . . these are interesting ‘sidelines,’ but as they say, “Don’t quit your day job,” because you will need a means to support yourself while you pursue your creative ideas, and that means having a ‘real job’ with a real income that pays the rent and puts food on the table during the years it will take for you to develop a talent and years it will take for you to be discovered. Yes, you should definitely pursue your dreams - while continuing to work at the job that provides you with an income.

A man said to his wife, “I don’t want to go to work today. It’s a jungle out there.” She said, “Don’t worry, I put a banana in your lunchbox.”

“You don’t get paid for the hour. You get paid for the value you bring to the hour.” -Jim Rohn (Emanuel James ‘Jim’ Rohn (1930 - 2009))

Desk: A waste-paper basket with drawers.

“We spend most of our lives working. So why do so few people have a good time doing it?” -Richard Branson (Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 1950)), as quoted in the “New York Times” (18 February 1993) newspaper

“Don’t bother to boast of your work to others; good work speaks for itself.” -Author Unknown

“They laughed when they saw him put iodine on his paycheck. They didn’t know he had an awful cut in his salary.” -Author Unknown

Worker’s Prayer

Now I get me up to work,
I pray, the Lord, I may not shirk.
If I should die before tonight,
I pray, the Lord, my work’s all right.

by Author Unknown

“Making a living is best undertaken as a part of the more important business of making a life.” -Author Unknown

“Doing a job right the first time gets the job done.” -Author Unknown

“Everything considered, work is less boring than amusing oneself.” -Charles Baudelaire (1821 - 1867)

“Keep your eye on the ball, your shoulder to the wheel, and your ear to the ground - now try to work in that position.” -Author Unknown

“A ‘people churner’ is a bad employee who causes a company to lose all of its good employees. Some companies have a gang, or a group of people churners, that work together to cause good employees to flee the company to find work elsewhere. What eventually happens to a company that loses all of its good employees?” -David Hugh Beaumont (born 1966)

“The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.” -James Baldwin (1924 - 1987)

“I don’t want any yes-men around me. I want everybody to tell me the truth, even if it costs them their jobs.” -Samuel Goldwyn (also known as Samuel Goldfish, born Szmuel Gelbfisz (1879 - 1974))

“Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their work done.” -Peter Drucker (Peter Ferdinand Drucker (1909 - 2005))

“Work is more fun than fun.” -Noël Coward (1899 - 1973)

Boss to new employee: Amazing - you’ve been with us only two days and already you’re a month behind.

“Labor, if it were not necessary for existence, would be indispensable for the happiness of man.” -Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784)

Overheard: I was thinking that with a few more deductions, my take-home pay wouldn’t be enough to get me there. Then, it finally happened - the deductions and withholdings have now exceeded my earnings, and last week, the company didn’t send me a pay check, they sent me a bill!

“Work offers us the opportunity to discover who we are and what we can do.” -Author Unknown

“Work is the basis of living. I’ll never retire. A man’ll rust out quicker than he’ll wear out.” -Harland Sanders (Harland David ‘Colonel’ Sanders (1890 - 1980))

Overheard: When I asked for a work break, my supervisor said, “You don’t need a break. We gave you one when we hired you.”

“Get happiness out of your work or you may never know what happiness is.” -Elbert Hubbard (Elbert Green Hubbard (1856 - 1915))

“Work: Something to do between weekends.” -Author Unknown

“As a remedy against all ills - poverty, sickness, and melancholy - only one thing is absolutely necessary: a liking for work.” -Charles Baudelaire (1821 - 1867)

“The best augury of a man’s success in his profession is that he thinks it the finest in the world.” -George Eliot (pseudonym of Mary Anne Evans (1819 - 1880))

“By 1960, work will be limited to three hours a day.” -John Langdon-Davies (1897 - 1971)

“The most important question to ask on the job is not, “What am I getting?” The most important question to ask on the job is, ‘What am I becoming?’” -Jim Rohn (Emanuel James ‘Jim’ Rohn (1930 - 2009)): “Jim Rohn’s Weekly E-zine” (11 February 2003)

“Be a friendly person to your co-workers. Say nice things to them. Help them when they least expect it.” -Jeffrey Gitomer (born 1946)

“If you do a good job and work hard, you may get a job with a better company someday.” -Author Unknown

“It is the first of all problems for a man to find out what kind of work he is to do in this Universe.” -Thomas Carlyle (1795 - 1881): “Address at Edinburgh” (2 April 1866)

“Find something in life you can give the best of yourself to.” -David Hugh Beaumont (born 1966)

Well, it is time to go to work again . . . we hope to see you right back here at MFOL! when your shift ends . . .

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The Boy Without a Reference

12/28/2019

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The Boy Without a Reference

John was fifteen, and anxious to get a desirable place in the office of a well-known lawyer, who had advertised for a boy. John doubted his success in obtaining this position, because, being a stranger in the city, he had no reference to present.

“I am afraid I will stand a poor chance,” he thought, despondently. “However, I will try to appear as well as I can, and that may help me a little.”

So he was careful to have his dress and person neat, and when he took his turn to be interviewed, went in with his hat in his hand and a smile on his face.

The keen-eyed lawyer glanced him over from head to foot. “Good face,” he thought, “and pleasant ways.” Then he noted the neat suit - but other boys had appeared in new clothes - saw the well-brushed hair, and clean skin. Very well; but there had been others quite as cleanly. Another glance, however, showed the fingernails free from dirt. “Ah, that looks like thoroughness,” thought the lawyer.

Then he asked a few direct, rapid questions, which John answered as directly. “Prompt,” was his mental comment; “can speak up when necessary.”

“Let’s see your writing,” he added aloud.

John took a pen and wrote his name.

“Very well; easy to read, and no flourishes. Now, what references have you?”

The dreadful question at last! John’s face fell. He had begun to feel some hope of success, but this dashed it again.

“I haven’t any,” he said, slowly. “I am almost a stranger in the city.”

“Cannot take a boy without references,” was the brusque reply.

As he spoke, a sudden thought sent a flush to John’s cheek. “I haven’t any reference,” he said, with hesitation; “but here is a letter from Mother which I just received. I wish you would read it.”

The lawyer took it. It was a short letter:

My Dear John,

I want to remind you that wherever you find work, you must consider that work your own. Do not go into it, as some boys do, with the feeling that you will do as little as you can and get something better soon, but make up your mind that you will do as much as possible, and make yourself so necessary to your employer that he will never let you go. You have been a good son to me, and I can truly say that I have never known you to shirk. Be as good in business, and I am sure God will bless your efforts.

“Hmm!” said the lawyer, reading it over the second time. “That’s pretty good advice, John, excellent advice. I rather think I will try you, even without the references.”

John has been with him six years, and last spring was admitted to the bar.

“Do you intend taking that young man into partnership?” asked a friend lately.

“Yes, I do. I could not get along without John; he is my right-hand man!” exclaimed the lawyer, heartily.

And John always says the best reference he ever had was his mother’s good advice and honest praise.

by Author Unknown

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The Farmer

12/9/2019

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The Farmer

The dawn is here! I climb the hill;
     The earth is young and strangely still;
A tender green is showing where
     But yesterday my fields were bare . . .
I climb and, as I climb, I sing;
     The dawn is here, and with it - spring!

My oxen stamp the ground, and they
     Seem glad, with me, that soon the day
Will bring new work for us to do!
     The light above is clear and blue;
And one great cloud that swirls on high,
     Seems sent from earth to kiss the sky.

The birds are coming back again,
     They know that soon the golden grain
Will wave above this fragrant loam;
     The birds, with singing, hasten home;
And I, who watch them, feel their song.
     Deep in my soul, and nothing wrong,

Or mean or small, can touch my heart . . .
     Down in the vale the smoke-wreaths start,
To softly curl above the trees;
     The fingers of a vagrant breeze
Steal tenderly across my hair,
     And toil is fled, and want, and care!

The dawn is here! I climb the hill;
     My very oxen seem to thrill -
To feel the mystery of day.
     The sun creeps out, and far away
From man-made law I worship God,
     Who made the light, the cloud, the sod;
I worship smilingly, and sing!
     The dawn is here, and with it - spring!

by Margaret E. Sangster

Margaret Elizabeth Sangster was born on 22 February 1838 in New Rochelle, New York, United States of America. She was married to George Sangster in October 1858. She became a writer, a poet, and a magazine editor. Her autobiography is titled, “From My Youth Up: Personal Reminiscences” (1909). Margaret Elizabeth Sangster passed on at 74 years of age on 3 June 1912 in South Orange, New Jersey, United States of America.

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Words of John Burroughs

11/27/2019

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Words of John Burroughs

What is the best thing for a stream? It is to keep moving. If it stops, it stagnates. So the best thing for a man is that which keeps the currents going, the physical, the moral, and the intellectual currents. Hence the secret of happiness is something to do; some congenial work. Take away the occupation of all men, and what a wretched world it would be! Few persons realize how much of their happiness is dependent upon their work, upon the fact that they are kept busy and not left to feed upon themselves. Happiness comes most to persons who seek her least, and think least about it. It is not an object to be sought; it is a state to be induced. It must follow and not lead. It must overtake you, and not you overtake it. How important is health to happiness, yet the best promoter of health is something to do. Blessed is the man who has some congenial work, some occupation in which he can put his heart, and which affords a complete outlet to all the forces there are in him.

by John Burroughs

John Burroughs was born on 3 April 1837 on a family farm in the Catskill Mountains near Roxbury, Delaware County, New York, United States of America. He became a naturalist and a writer. John Burroughs passed on at 83 years of age on 29 March 1921 near Kingsville, Ashtabula County, Ohio, United States of America.

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The Man Who Gets Promoted

11/25/2019

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The Man Who Gets Promoted

The ordinary fellow does an ordinary task,
     He’s mighty fond of ‘good enough’ and lets it go at that;
But the chap who gets promoted, or the raise he doesn’t ask,
     Has just a little something more than hair beneath his hat.

The ordinary fellow lives an ordinary day,
     With the ordinary fellow he is anxious to be quit;
But the chap who draws attention and the larger weekly pay,
     Has a vision for the future and is working hard for it.

He tackles every problem with the will to see it through,
     He does a little thinking of the work that comes to hand;
His eyes are always open for the more that he can do,
     You never find him idle, merely waiting a command.

The ordinary fellow does precisely as he’s told,
     But someone has to tell him what to do, and how, and when;
But the chap who gets promoted fills the job he has to hold
     With just a little something more than ordinary men.

by Edgar A. Guest: “The Passing Throng” (1923)

Edgar Albert ‘Eddie’ Guest was born on 20 August 1881 in Birmingham, England. He immigrated with his family to the United States of America in 1891. From his first published work in the “Detroit Free Press” until his passing in 1959, he penned some 11,000 poems that were syndicated in 300 newspapers and collected into more than twenty books. Mr. Guest is reputed to have had a new poem published in a newspaper every day for more than thirty years. He became known as ‘The People’s Poet,’ writing poems that were of a sentimental and optimistic nature. Edgar Albert ‘Eddie’ Guest passed on at 77 years of age on 5 August 1959 in Detroit, Michigan, United States of America.

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Farming

1/13/2019

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Farming

Farming has always brought me peace,
     It’s a partnership with God -
I plant the seeds, He makes them grow
     Where before there was only sod.

Through hot summer days I cultivate,
     He sends sun and rain -
Then when autumn cools the air
     There’s harvest of golden grain.

by Rea Williams

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Ten Enthusiastic Workers

12/12/2018

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Ten Enthusiastic Workers

Ten enthusiastic workers, vigorous and fine;
One had another commitment, and then there were nine.

Nine enthusiastic workers, excited and elate;
One got hired away, and then there were eight.

Eight enthusiastic workers, keeping things even;
One got sloppy, and then there were seven.

Seven enthusiastic workers, giving it their best;
One found it tedious, and then there were six.

Six enthusiastic workers, looking all alive;
One fell asleep, and then there were five.

Five enthusiastic workers, keeping up their score;
One showed up late, and then there were four.

Four enthusiastic workers, bright as bright can be;
One became careless, and then there were three.

Three enthusiastic workers, seeking work to do;
One thought he couldn’t, and then there were two.

Two enthusiastic workers, proud of good things done;
One grew too tired, and then there was one.

One enthusiastic worker, still hanging on;
Because persevering had made him strong.

by David Hugh Beaumont (born 1966)

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Why I Like Business

12/2/2018

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Why I Like Business

I like business because it is competitive. Business keeps books. The books are the score cards. Profit is the measure of accomplishment, not the ideal measure, but the most practical that can be devised.

I like business because it compels earnestness. Amateurs and dilettantes are shoved out. Once in you must fight for survival or be carried to the sidelines.

I like business because it requires courage. Cowards do not get to first base.

I like business because it demands faith. Faith in human nature, faith in one’s self, faith in one’s customers, faith in one’s employees.

I like business because it is the essence of life. Dreams are good, poetical fancies are good, but bread must be baked today, trains must move today, bills must be collected today, payrolls met today. Business feeds, clothes, and houses man.

I like business because it rewards deeds and not words.

I like business because it does not neglect today’s task while it is thinking about tomorrow.

I like business because it undertakes to please, not to reform.

I like business because it is orderly.

I like business because it is bold in enterprise.

I like business because it is honestly selfish, thereby avoiding the hypocrisy and sentimentality of the unselfish mind.

I like business because it is promptly penalized for its mistakes, shiftlessness, and inefficiency.

I like business because its philosophy works.

I like business because each day is a fresh, adventure.

by William Feather: as published in the “Herald-Times Reporter” (21 July 1927), page 3; a newspaper of Manitowoc, Wisconsin, United States of America

William Arthur Feather was born on 25 August 1889 in Jamestown, New York, United States of America. He was married to Ruth Elizabeth Presley on 30 October 1912, and together the couple had two children. He became a publisher and a writer. He spent much of his life in Cleveland, Ohio, United States of America, where he owned a profitable printing business and published, “The William Feather Magazine.” William Arthur Feather passed on at 91 years of age on 7 January 1981.

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The Spirit of Work

9/28/2018

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The Spirit of Work

A this momentous point of time, when the Old Year and the New Year are blending imperceptibly into that mystic web of human history called Past and Present, what says the dial of our destiny? On what figure in the round of man’s life and progress does the rising sun of the Future shed its clearest and most commanding ray? Let us look up and see! Let us lift our eyes from our dreary self-absorption and miserable personal and petty cares, let us read the shining numeral that marks our immediate national duty Work! Work is the center from which all the lines of a nation’s power and prosperity radiate; and work is, with us, the burning topic of the day. Work that is urgently sought and demanded; work that needs doing; work waiting to be taken strenuously in hand; work that must and shall be done, or all the forces of God and Nature will demand why it is left undone! Before all rulers, priests, statesmen, and people in our Empire lies a vast field of labor a field in which as yet so little of the soil has been tilled, and so scanty the grain which has been sown, that such harvest as may be gathered in is well-nigh profitless. Work is, to a certain extent, slowly going on, but the real ‘spirit’ of work is almost, if not entirely, lacking. And success is impossible in any undertaking, unless one has all one’s heart and soul in the means whereby success is attained. The simplest task has its result in something satisfactory, if per formed by a cheerful and willing worker, while the most brilliant opportunities of high achievement are stultified and rendered nil by a laggard, reluctant, or prejudiced humor. The ‘spirit’ of work must be centered in work before any work can be done worth doing.

There are certain persons of singular and altogether diseased mind who look upon work as a hardship scarcely to be borne. These are the outcasts of Nature. For if we faithfully study Nature, our divine Mother, we find that never for a single second does she know any cessation of toil. Forever and ever she patiently essays to teach us, her children, the secret of her beauty, her fruitfulness, her wisdom; and forever and ever we turn aside, striving in puny fashion to oppose ourselves to her immutable laws while creating impracticable ones of our own. She shows us that the loveliness of land and sea, the blossoming of trees and flowers, the plumage of birds and butterflies, the formation of precious gems in the rocks and among the shells of the ocean, are all the result of Work. The diamond is the brilliant effect of patient conformation to the necessary elements of its composition in the mine. The pearl is merely the proof of laborious effort on the part of a poor bivalve to mend a wound in its shell. When with the coming spring we see the first dainty aconites breaking the dark ground into gold, we know they have been ‘working’ their way through the earth determinedly, moved by the divine instinct and desire of light. Strange it is that we cannot at least do our work as well as these simple organisms which passively obey the Divine Command! We judge ourselves ‘superior’ to them; but in that we cannot or will not do our ‘work’ so well, we are inferior. We have less patience than the diamond; less adaptability than the oyster; less courage than the aconite. The particular kind of work which we perhaps find ready to our hand to do, does not suit our ‘convenience.’ We are too ‘great’ for anything that savors of the ‘menial.’ The duties to which honor, conscience, and self-respect bind us are ‘narrow’ or ‘monotonous.’ We want to be something we are not, and for which we were never intended to be; and like the fabled frog who sought to become a bull, we burst ourselves with an inflated idea of our own value. The famous Quentin Matsys was a blacksmith. But he did not scorn the blacksmith’s trade or the blacksmith’s shop: he raised the smithy work to the height of his own creative genius, as is testified to this day by his exquisitely fashioned iron fountain in the Cathedral Square of Antwerp. Benvenuto Cellini was a metal worker, and his ‘trade’ was his joy. He was content to stick to his trade; and to design such marvels of work in his trade, that his name has come down to us in our generation as one of the few among the masters of art in the world.

In Great Britain there is, most unfortunately, a certain ‘class’ contempt for ‘trades.’ The worker in any one of them is hampered on all sides; and his individuality, if he happens to possess any, is too frequently condemned and repressed. The man who is occupied in a trade is called a ‘common’ man. Many folks among us are a great deal too fond of this word ‘common.’ They use it on all occasions, in and out of season depreciatively, or contemptuously. They have a fastidious abhorrence for ‘common’ things. They dislike the ‘common’ people. The brave soul who has climbed inch by inch up the ladder of prosperity, beginning at the very lowest rung and arriving success fully at the top, receives but a grudging meed of praise ‘he comes of common family’ he is quite a ‘common’ person! This expression ‘common’ is a favorite one with the sort of people who are found languishing idly among the ‘hangers-on’ of ‘county’ magnates, striving to claim kinship (through some pre-Adamite ‘family connection’) with a lord, or a duke, or some such human toy of material circumstance; and preferring to pass their time generally in disseminating stupid scandal and mischievous gossip, rather than mix with ‘common’ everyday honest men and women who have work to do in the world, and who honestly do it. Among them are most of the toadies, time-servers, and hypocrites of the community; creatures who crawl before a trumpery ‘title’ as abjectly as a beaten cur trails its body along in the dust under the whip of its master, and who have neither the courage nor the perception to see that there is nothing in God’s universe that we dare call ‘common.’ Every smallest particle of creation, from a star to a dewdrop, is designed to be perfect in itself, and individually adapted to individual uses. We may not rightly call any man, woman, or child ‘common,’ except in so far as they belong to our ‘common’ humanity, and share with us the joys of the ‘common’ sunshine, the ‘common’ fresh air, the privilege of a ‘common’ grave, and the right of a ‘common’ faith in God. And the ‘common’ man who has worked, and through work alone has performed the un-‘common’ feat of raising himself from the low to the high, is far more to be admired and respected than he who, born to the heritage of millions, trifles away his time in idle squandering and foolish dissipation. Nature marks this latter class of wealthy ‘loafers’ so that we may know them. Their banking-accounts may be written in raised letters of gold, but on their faces we read in unmistakable characters what may be called a ‘Public Warning.’ The man who himself works for his own, is a much healthier type of humanity than the man who merely takes what others have made for him.

There is no degradation in any sort of work. The field-laborer turning the heavy clods of earth, in preparation for the sowing of grain, is every whit as noble as the student who, by patient research, prepares the way for a harvest of fresh scientific discovery, always providing that the true ‘spirit’ of work is in both men. For the ‘spirit’ of work is the love of work; it is the bending of all one’s energies, for love’s sake, upon the particular task we have in hand. With love all things are easy; without love, the smallest duty becomes burdensome. There is no reason why another Benvenuto Cellini should not arise in the metal trade, no cause why another Michael Angelo should not paint ceilings in fresco. We are frequently shamed, not so much by the enterprise of other nations, as by our own idleness and inefficiency. We make a great clamor about ‘gentility’ a form of snobbishness more prevalent in the British Islands than anywhere else. Many a working-man’s wife would rather place her sons as clerks in city offices than apprentice them to a useful trade, because she foolishly imagines clerks are ‘gentlemen,’ forgetting that ‘gentlemen’ are not made by position, but by conduct. Every so-called ‘gentleman’ in the land would be much the better for learning some trade before considering his education completed. No trade is, of itself, contemptible; each branch offers its own chances of new discovery and higher development, depending on the invention, ambition, energy, and resource of those employed in it. Thought and perseverance in a worker are bound to raise whatever work he or she is employed in to an art. Personally speaking, I am bound to say that I have never found any one who is really clever, trustworthy, and persevering, in any trade or profession, among the ‘Unemployed.’ The real lovers of work seem always to have enough, and more than enough, work to do. I endorse every word recently written by a clever American writer who, discussing the ‘Unemployed,’ and the men who declare they have ‘no chance nowadays,’ says: ‘I do not believe that life is more difficult than it used to be. To-day, perhaps, you may have to know French, shorthand, or typewriting among the means of livelihood. But to learn them all does not require a greater sacrifice of brain power than was required of our grandfathers to learn reading and writing. They often had to walk six miles there and six miles back from a school, and when they had learnt an accomplishment the ‘competition’ was ‘fearful.’ At the bottom of much of this modern outcry of the terrible difficulties of life nowadays, there appears to me to be a good deal of self-conceit, when the cry is raised by a successful man, and of self-excuse when the cry is used by an unsuccessful man. The former likes to impress upon you that he has done something heroic; the latter that he has failed simply because nobody could have succeeded.

‘The world seems overstocked with everything,’ a gloomy-minded man remarked to Lord Palmerston. ‘I can tell you some things that the world has never enough of,’ replied Palmerston, ‘and that it is always willing to pay for: intelligence, honesty, courage, and perseverance. In these the supply will never exceed the demand.’

Intelligence, honesty, courage, and perseverance are never found in the worker who does not truly love his work. Love brings all the virtues in its train. Love means earnest concentration on the thing beloved. Goethe’s inspiring lines should animate the mind and brace the energies of every worker:

Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute,
Whatever you can do, or dream you can begin it;
Boldness has genius, power, magic in it;
Only engage, and then the mind grows heated;
Begin! and then the work will be completed.

Nature never knows ‘short hours.’ She works at midnight as steadily as she does at mid-day. In the very sleep of her manifold creatures she has designed a working remedial system by which the wear and tear of brain and body shall be repaired. I doubt if any living organism in the whole vast Cosmos ever seeks a holiday save Man. I have often marveled that so sagacious a person as ‘St. Lubbock,’ now Lord Avebury, should have instituted ‘Bank Holidays’ for men, seeing that he has studied the habits and customs of bees. When we complain of working ‘over-time,’ we are really proclaiming ourselves as inferior to the ants and beetles. When we indulge ourselves in idleness and ‘loafing’ we are doing something diametrically opposed to all the laws of the universe. What wonder then if the secret forces of that universe forces whose vast movements we only as yet dimly realize should cast us out among the unfit and ‘Unemployed’? In the bird-world, if one of the feathered community refuses to work for its own living, it is quickly dispatched, as an abnormal and diseased creature. And there is not the slightest doubt that voluntary idleness is nothing less than a morbid growth in the mind, as devastating as a cancer in the body. Nowadays we find scores of people bent on ‘amusing’ themselves. ‘How are you going to ‘amuse’ yourself?’ is a daily question, or ‘What shall we do to kill time and ‘amuse’ ourselves?’ Nobody seems to grasp the fact that in Work, and work alone, is the source of both ‘amusement’ and happiness, as well as of prosperity and power. As for ‘killing time,’ that is a criminal act, for every moment is precious to those who know how to use it honestly. By-and-by our little clocks in this world must stop, and we shall be spared no more of the golden minutes, laden with blessing, opportunity, and love, which, while we live, are given to us freely from the treasuries of God. To ‘kill’ one of them is to murder a living thing.

Certain it is, however, that ‘amusement,’ or what is called by that name, is the fetish of the hour. The wealthy classes of our day set a most mischievous example of time-wasting to the rest of the community, and until they cease to create scandal by their extravagance, licentiousness, sensualism, and luxury, so long will there be discontent and disorder among what we are pleased to call the ‘lower’ majority of the people. If the rich man passes his time in shooting tame partridges and pheasants, the poor man sees no reason why he should not equally pass his time in playing football. He, too, will be ‘amused’ in his way. And supposing football does not appeal to him, he will seek ‘amusement’ in the public-house, getting drunk on the ‘doctored’ beer provided for him by prosperous brewers, of whom some are in Parliament, and some, with the most sublime hypocrisy, profess to support the ‘temperance’ cause. Honest interest in honest work, and the State encouragement of ambition in honest workers, would serve ‘temperance’ better than a million sermons. Government prizes given for specimens of superlative work done by British workmen in British trades would at least show that statesmen thought of something more than their own positions in the House, ‘tea on the Terrace,’ and Bridge, which three things at present would often appear to occupy them, to the forgetfulness of more pressing matters. Aspiration, research, discovery, and invention should be ‘officially’ encouraged and recognized in every trade and profession not checked, repressed, or ‘sneered down.’ For work is not only the making but the preservation of an Empire, arid all those engaged in work merit first consideration from an Empire’s rulers.

A Worker is always a dignified figure. He is the nearest approach to all that we may reverently conceive or guess of God. The Divine Source of Creation must be an ever-working Power. There can be no cessation, no rest from toil, for that prolific Intelligence which creates by a thought and sustains with a breath. Work must needs bring us into unison with Him who hath made us. And if we work faithfully, in the true ‘spirit’ of work, we shall come closer to the Infinite Life of all things, and shall understand, perchance, the deepest, purest meaning and higher intention of our own existence in this world, from which, when our work here is finished, we shall pass to a higher sphere of Labor and a fuller fruition of Love.

by Marie Corelli (1906)

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Clinching the Bolt

8/30/2018

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Clinching the Bolt

It needed just an extra turn to make the bolt secure,
     A few more minutes on the job and then the work was sure;
But he begrudged the extra turn, and when the task was through,
     The man was back for more repairs in just a day or two.

Two men there are in every place, and one is only fair,
     The other gives the extra turn to every bolt that’s there;
One man is slip-shod in his work and eager to be quit,
     The other never leaves a task until he’s sure of it.

The difference ’twixt good and bad is not so very much,
     A few more minutes at the task, an extra turn or touch,
A final test that all is right - and yet the men are few
     Who seem to think it worth their while these extra things to do.

The poor man knows as well as does the good man how to work,
     But one takes pride in every task, the other likes to shirk;
With just as little as he can, one seeks his pay to earn,
     The good man always gives the bolt that clinching, extra turn.

by Edgar A. Guest

Edgar Albert ‘Eddie’ Guest was born on 20 August 1881 in Birmingham, England. He immigrated with his family to the United States of America in 1891. From his first published work in the “Detroit Free Press” until his passing in 1959, he penned some 11,000 poems that were syndicated in 300 newspapers and collected into more than twenty books. Mr. Guest is reputed to have had a new poem published in a newspaper every day for more than thirty years. He became known as ‘The People’s Poet,’ writing poems that were of a sentimental and optimistic nature. Edgar Albert ‘Eddie’ Guest passed on at 77 years of age on 5 August 1959 in Detroit, Michigan, United States of America.

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Work

8/13/2018

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Work

Work, work, my boy, be not afraid;
     Look labor boldly in the face;
Take up the hammer or the spade,
     And blush not for your humble place.

There’s glory in the shuttle’s song;
     There’s triumph in the anvil’s stroke;
There’s merit in the brave and strong
     Who dig the mine or fell the oak.

The wind disturbs the sleeping lake,
     And bids it ripple pure and fresh;
It moves the green boughs till they make
     Grand music in their leafy mesh.

And so the active breath of life
     Should stir our dull and sluggard wills;
For are we not created rife
     With health, that stagnant torpor kills?

I doubt if he who lolls his head
     Where idleness and plenty meet,
Enjoys his pillow or his bread
     As those who earn the meals they eat.

And man is never half so blest
     As when the busy day is spent
So as to make his evening rest
     A holiday of glad content.

Eliza Cook

Eliza Cook was born on 24 December 1818 in London Road, Southwark, England. She became a poet. Eliza Cook passed on at 70 years of age on 23 September 1889 in Wimbledon, England.

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The Village Blacksmith

8/12/2018

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The Village Blacksmith

Under a spreading chestnut-tree
     The village smithy stands;
The smith, a mighty man is he,
     With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny arms
     Are strong as iron bands.

His hair is crisp, and black, and long,
     His face is like the tan;
His brow is wet with honest sweat,
     He earns whate’er he can,
And looks the whole world in the face,
     For he owes not any man.

Week in, week out, from morn till night,
     You can hear his bellows blow;
You can hear him swing his heavy sledge,
     With measured beat and slow,
Like a sexton ringing the village bell,
     When the evening sun is low.

And children coming home from school
     Look in at the open door;
They love to see the flaming forge,
     And hear the bellows roar,
And catch the burning sparks that fly
     Like chaff from a threshing-floor.

He goes on Sunday to the church,
     And sits among his boys;
He hears the parson pray and preach,
     He hears his daughter’s voice,
Singing in the village choir,
     And it makes his heart rejoice.

It sounds to him like her mother’s voice,
     Singing in Paradise!
He needs must think of her once more,
     How in the grave she lies;
And with his haul, rough hand he wipes
     A tear out of his eyes.

Toiling, - rejoicing, - sorrowing,
     Onward through life he goes;
Each morning sees some task begin,
     Each evening sees it close
Something attempted, something done,
     Has earned a night’s repose.

Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,
     For the lesson thou hast taught!
Thus at the flaming forge of life
     Our fortunes must be wrought;
Thus on its sounding anvil shaped
     Each burning deed and thought.

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1840)

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born on 27 February 1807 in Portland, Maine, United States of America. He became a poet and a writer, and a professor at Harvard University. His works include “Paul Revere’s Ride” (1860) and the epic “The Song of Hiawatha” (1855). He was one of the five members of a group of 19th-century American poets from New England known as the Fireside Poets. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow passed on at 75 years of age on 24 March 1882.

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The Hard-Work Plan

7/21/2018

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The Hard-Work Plan

From the lowest depths of poverty
     To the highest heights of fame,
From obscureness of position
     To a bright and shining name,
From the mass of human beings
     Who compose the common clan,
You can earn your way to greatness
     By the Hard-Work Plan.

’Twas the key to Lincoln’s progress,
     ’Twas the route to Webster’s fame;
And Garfield by this method
     To distinction laid his claim;
And all earth’s noblest heroes,
     Since this old world first began,
Have earned their way to honor
     By the Hard-Work Plan.

I knew a rich old banker’s son
     Who had no aim in view
But just to sit around and loaf;
     ’Twas all he had to do.
“The old man,” he said, “will keep me,”
     And “I don’t have to pay.”
He earns his bread and butter now
     At fifty cents a day.

And then I knew another lad;
     His folks had money, too;
He didn’t sit around and “loaf,”
     But found some work to do.
The neighbors all were proud of him;
     Said they: “He’ll make a man.”
He earned his way to greatness
     By the Hard-Work Plan.

Go read the lives of men of note,
     Consider their success;
What gave them wealth and eminence?
     Did luck or genius bless?
Biography will tell us that
     The race through which they ran
Was the contest known to history
     As the Hard-Work Plan.

Don’t worry over genius;
     Don’t say you have no brain;
Don’t sit and watch the stars of hope
     Till the clouds bring up a rain;
But up and toil along the road,
     And travel with the van,
And earn your way to greatness
     By the Hard-Work Plan.

by Jonathan Jones

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How Do You Tackle Your Work?

7/20/2018

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How Do You Tackle Your Work?

How do you tackle your work each day?
     Are you scared of the job you find?
Do you grapple the task that comes your way
     With a confident, easy mind?
Do you stand right up to the work ahead
     Or fearfully pause to view it?
Do you start to toil with a sense of dread?
     Or feel that you’re going to do it?

You can do as much as you think you can,
     But you’ll never accomplish more;
If you’re afraid of yourself, young man,
     There’s little for you in store.
For failure comes from the inside first,
     It’s there if we only knew it,
And you can win, though you face the worst,
     If you feel that you’re going to do it.

Success! It’s found in the soul of you,
     And not in the realm of luck!
The world will furnish the work to do,
     But you must provide the pluck.
You can do whatever you think you can,
     It’s all in the way you view it.
It’s all in the start you make, young man:
     You must feel that you’re going to do it.

How do you tackle your work each day?
     With confidence clear, or dread?
What to yourself do you stop and say
     When a new task lies ahead?
What is the thought that is in your mind?
     Is fear ever running through it?
If so, just tackle the next you find
     By thinking you’re going to do it.

by Edgar A. Guest: “A Heap o’ Livin’” (1916)

Edgar Albert ‘Eddie’ Guest was born on 20 August 1881 in Birmingham, England. He immigrated with his family to the United States of America in 1891. From his first published work in the “Detroit Free Press” until his passing in 1959, he penned some 11,000 poems that were syndicated in 300 newspapers and collected into more than twenty books. Mr. Guest is reputed to have had a new poem published in a newspaper every day for more than thirty years. He became known as ‘The People’s Poet,’ writing poems that were of a sentimental and optimistic nature. Edgar Albert ‘Eddie’ Guest passed on at 77 years of age on 5 August 1959 in Detroit, Michigan, United States of America.

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Stick to Your Job

7/19/2018

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Stick to Your Job

Diamonds are only chunks of coal
     That stuck to their jobs, you see;
If they’d petered out, as most of us do,
     Where would the diamonds be?

It isn’t the fact of making a start,
     It’s the sticking that counts. I’ll say,
It’s the fellow that knows not the meaning of fall,
     But hammers and hammers away.

Whenever you think you’ve come to the end,
     And you’re beaten as bad as can be,
Remember that diamonds are chunks of coal,
     That stuck to their jobs, you see.

by Minnie Richard Smith: as published in Christian F. Kleinknecht: “Poor Richard’s Anthology of Thoughts on Success” (1947), page 44

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