Improve Your Time

1      Success in life depends upon persistent effort, upon
         the improvement of moments more than upon any other
         one thing. A great amount of time is consumed in talking
         nothing, doing nothing, and indecision as to what one
5      should do. If one would be successful in the future, let
         him make the most of the present.

         Three ways of wasting time, one of which is con-
         temptible, are gossiping mischief, making lingering calls,
10    and mere motion when at work, thinking of nothing or
         planning for some amusement, — travel of limb more
         than mind. Rushing around smartly is no proof of ac-
         complishing much.

         All successful individuals have become such by hard
15    work; by improving moments before they pass into hours,
         and hours that other people may occupy in the pursuit
         of pleasure. They spend no time in sheer idleness, in
         talking when they have nothing to say, in building air-
         castles or floating off on the wings of sense: all of which
20    drop human life into the ditch of nonsense, and worse
         than waste its years.

         “Let us, then, be up and doing,
         With a heart for any fate;
         Still achieving, still pursuing,
25    Learn to labor and to wait.”