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- Herausgeber: Musaicum Books
- Kategorie: Ratgeber
- Sprache: Englisch
Orison Swett Marden's book 'Be Good to Yourself' explores the importance of self-care and self-love in achieving success and happiness. Written in a straightforward and inspirational style, the book provides practical advice for readers on how to prioritize their own well-being and personal growth. Marden emphasizes the significance of cultivating a positive mindset and developing healthy habits in order to live a fulfilling life. The book's timeless message continues to resonate with readers seeking to improve their self-esteem and overall quality of life. 'Be Good to Yourself' aligns with the self-help and personal development literature of its time, offering valuable insights on the power of self-compassion and self-care. Marden's work serves as a reminder of the importance of self-love in creating a life of purpose and fulfillment. Readers looking to enhance their self-awareness and nurture their emotional well-being will find 'Be Good to Yourself' to be a valuable resource in their personal growth journey. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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BE GOOD TO YOURSELF
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Table of Contents
Introduction
The core argument is that lasting achievement begins with a disciplined kindness toward oneself, not with self-neglect dressed up as ambition. In this book, Orison Swett Marden challenges the belief that relentless grinding and harsh self-criticism are prerequisites for success, insisting instead that character, health, and hopeful thinking are the engines of progress. With the poise of a mentor, he reframes self-respect as the foundation of productivity, arguing that people work best when they honor their limits, cultivate buoyant habits, and draw on inner resources rather than fear. He urges readers to see self-care not as indulgence but as the maintenance of the instrument—mind and body—on which endeavor depends.
Be Good to Yourself belongs to the American self-help tradition, addressed to general readers seeking practical counsel on living well and achieving worthy aims. Written in the early twentieth century, when Marden edited Success magazine and popularized optimism as a discipline, the book reflects an era that prized industry, aspiration, and moral uplift. Rather than situating its ideas in a narrative setting, it offers concise reflections and exhortations shaped by the period’s faith in character and opportunity. Its publication context aligns it with the broader movement of inspirational essays that sought to translate ethical ideals into everyday practice.
The premise is as straightforward as it is demanding: treat your own mental and physical vitality as a trust, and you will multiply your power to serve, create, and persevere. Marden writes in an encouraging, earnest voice that blends practical maxims with brief illustrative examples, moving briskly from observation to application. The style is plainspoken and rhythmic, designed to be read in small portions and revisited. The tone is fortifying rather than sentimental, pressing readers toward action while affirming their inherent worth. The result is a companionable guide that balances inspiration with commonsense reminders and moral clarity.
At its heart, the book contends that self-respect is the seedbed of character, and that character is the surest ally of achievement. It explores how habits of thought shape outcomes, urging readers to guard attention, feed hope, and reject corrosive self-talk. Health, rest, cheerfulness, and purposeful work appear not as luxuries but as responsibilities, since fatigue and bitterness deform judgment. Marden emphasizes that kindness toward oneself strengthens courage, perseverance, and generosity toward others. By teaching readers to align desire with duty, and ambition with integrity, the work seeks a harmony in which personal welfare supports service and sustained excellence.
While not a step-by-step program, the counsel is concrete: cultivate uplifting influences, choose wholesome routines, practice moderation in effort, and interpret setbacks as opportunities to strengthen resolve. The book returns often to the discipline of attention, reminding readers that what they dwell on gradually scripts their conduct. It treats courtesy, cheer, and gratitude as exercises that train the will and refresh the spirit. Throughout, Marden writes as a benevolent coach, presenting attainable ideals and urging steady, everyday practice. The guidance is designed to be portable, applicable at work, at home, and in the quiet spaces where motives are formed.
For contemporary readers navigating burnout, distraction, and the pressures of constant comparison, the book’s insistence on self-kindness as a prerequisite for effectiveness feels newly urgent. Its language bears the cadence of its era, yet its principles—guarding attention, honoring limits, cultivating hope, and working from inner steadiness—map cleanly onto today’s concerns about wellbeing and sustainable productivity. It offers a counterweight to hustle-only narratives by placing dignity and health at the center of aspiration. In a time when many confuse harshness with rigor, Marden’s argument helps reframe discipline as stewardship, encouraging a life that can endure strain without surrendering joy.
Approached as a collection of lucid admonitions rather than a single linear argument, Be Good to Yourself rewards unhurried reading and periodic reflection. Its counsel pairs well with journaling, short meditative pauses, and practical experiments that translate insight into habit. Readers new to Marden will find a representative expression of his larger project: to reconcile aspiration with humanity, ambition with self-respect, and work with wise rest. Without offering formulas, the book equips a reader to judge conditions, choose nourishing aims, and proceed with steadiness. It remains a humane, bracing companion for those seeking to grow without eroding themselves.
Synopsis
Be Good to Yourself presents Orison Swett Marden’s central argument that genuine success begins with a humane, disciplined regard for one’s own well-being. Writing in the tradition of early twentieth‑century personal development, he frames self-kindness not as indulgence but as duty: the foundation for efficiency, courage, and character. The opening chapters define what it means to be “good to yourself”: cultivating self-respect, guarding one’s ideals, and refusing habits that belittle one’s powers. Marden situates the reader’s internal life—thoughts, aims, and self-concept—as the workshop of destiny, proposing that constructive thinking and a wholesome standard for oneself precede outward achievement.
Marden then explores the psychology of self-treatment. He warns that chronic self-criticism, gloomy forebodings, and the habit of measuring oneself by momentary stumbles corrode initiative. By contrast, a steady inner approval—earned by honest effort and clean motives—frees energy and steadies judgment. He emphasizes the power of mental pictures: the ideals one persistently holds tend to shape conduct, reputation, and opportunities. Rather than urging vanity, he calls for a rational confidence anchored in integrity and purposeful work. The reader is urged to select thoughts that nourish courage and hope, since these become the atmosphere in which decisions and habits harden.
He broadens self-kindness to include the body and daily regimen. Overstrain, neglect of sleep, poor diet, and joyless routines are shown to blunt ability and darken judgment. Marden advocates reasonable hours, fresh air, recreation, and periodic change of scene, not as luxuries but as safeguards of efficiency and cheer. He urges the reader to cultivate play, laughter, and simple pleasures that renew courage. The discussion emphasizes order, punctuality, and self-control while rejecting the false heroism of ceaseless toil. Being good to oneself, in this sense, means respecting natural limits so that mind and character can do their best work.
From this base, the book moves to the motives that organize a life. Marden argues that a clear, worthy purpose prevents waste and protects morale when tasks become difficult. He urges readers to choose work that calls out their best faculties and to bring to it diligence, punctuality, and persistent learning. Fear and worry, he notes, exhaust more power than honest labor; courage and serenity conserve it. When setbacks arrive, self-reproach and panic are replaced with analysis and renewed effort. The aim is not ease, but buoyant endurance—the kind that keeps one’s standards high while adapting methods to changing conditions.
He pays close attention to environment and association, claiming that the company we keep, the books we read, and the surroundings we create act as continuous suggestions. Marden advises choosing influences that elevate taste, refine speech, and keep ambition wholesome. He commends courtesy and optimism as habits that attract opportunity while strengthening self-respect. The discussion includes the intelligent use of leisure, guarding against coarsening amusements, and building a home and work atmosphere that reinforces good habits. In all of this, the standard remains the same: treat oneself as an ally and steward, not a taskmaster or a cynic.
Marden links self-care to duty toward others. He argues that the person who respects and disciplines himself becomes more dependable in friendship, business, and civic life. Being good to oneself thus means developing character traits—fairness, gratitude, cleanliness in motives—that safeguard trust. He portrays generosity and service as enlargements of self-respect rather than sacrifices that deplete it. Prosperity, in this model, is measured by usefulness and growth as much as by income. The narrative underscores how a gracious manner, punctual promises, and clean standards turn ambition into constructive influence, making one’s success a benefit rather than a burden to associates.
Without reducing life to formulas, the book closes by reaffirming a simple thesis: sustained, humane regard for one’s mind, body, and ideals creates the conditions for achievement, happiness, and usefulness. In its era, the work helped popularize a vision of success that balanced aspiration with health, decency, and steady cheer. Its counsel—moderation in labor, courage in thought, and a deliberate moral standard—anticipates later discussions of wellness and resilience. Be Good to Yourself endures because it translates lofty ideals into daily conduct, inviting readers to build a life that is productive without hardness and kind without surrendering ambition.
Historical Context
Be Good to Yourself emerged in the United States during the Progressive Era, when rapid industrialization, urban migration, and expanding mass education reshaped daily life. Its author, Orison Swett Marden (1850–1924), was a leading voice in American self-help and the founding editor of Success magazine (launched 1897), which popularized stories of enterprise for a nationwide middle-class readership. The book belongs to a moment when magazines, lecture circuits, and publishers brought moral instruction and practical psychology into parlors and offices. In that setting, Marden framed personal improvement not only as ambition but as a disciplined care of health, habit, and morale, aligning aspiration with humane limits.
Marden’s outlook drew on currents associated with New Thought and post-Emersonian self-culture, which taught that disciplined thinking influenced character, conduct, and even health. Popular mind-cure literature, inspirational sermons, and lyceum lectures had spread such ideas since the late nineteenth century. In the early 1900s, psychology and pragmatism—given public currency by writers like William James—encouraged lay readers to test beliefs by their practical effects. Marden translated these trends into accessible counsel about attitude, cheerfulness, and purpose. In Be Good to Yourself, the emphasis on mental habits and self-respect reflects this synthesis of moral uplift and applied psychology, designed for everyday readers navigating modern pressure.
The book also speaks to anxieties about overwork in an age of regimented schedules and expanding clerical labor. Physicians and social commentators diagnosed “neurasthenia” as a distinctly modern fatigue, while S. Weir Mitchell’s “rest cure” and Theodore Roosevelt’s celebration of the “strenuous life” offered contrasting remedies. Employers experimented with vacations and shorter hours, yet efficiency drives tightened pace. Be Good to Yourself participates in this debate by urging moderation, recreation, and the conservation of vitality. Its language of balance and replenishment addresses readers living with office clocks, streetcars, and telephones, translating a medical and social discussion into practical ethics of daily care.
American success literature had long taught thrift and grit, from Samuel Smiles’s Self-Help (1859) to Horatio Alger’s moral tales and Andrew Carnegie’s “Gospel of Wealth” (1889). Marden respected enterprise but updated the tradition for twentieth-century readers by stressing inner resources—optimism, self-respect, and health—as prerequisites for outward achievement. His counsel paralleled business advice yet softened its harsher edges, reminding strivers that exhaustion undermines judgment and opportunity. Be Good to Yourself fits this lineage while revising it: prosperity remains desirable, but the means include humane treatment of one’s time, nerves, and ideals, not merely relentless exertion or accumulation for its own sake.
Two severe financial shocks, the Panic of 1893 and the Panic of 1907, shaped the culture in which Marden wrote, intensifying public appetite for guidance on resilience and morale. Success magazine—his primary platform—featured profiles and interviews with industrialists and inventors such as Andrew Carnegie and Thomas A. Edison, extracting lessons about character and persistence. Be Good to Yourself channels similar material toward sustainable living, translating heroic anecdotes into counsel on rest, self-command, and steady effort. By addressing readers who had experienced layoffs, volatility, and recovery, the book renders optimism not naïveté but a practiced habit supporting long-term productivity and hope.
The era’s infrastructure for self-improvement expanded through Chautauqua assemblies, YMCA programs, settlement houses, and an explosion of public libraries, including thousands funded by Carnegie philanthropy. Women’s clubs and correspondence schools broadened access to reading and vocational training. Marden’s books circulated through these channels, written in clear prose pitched to clerks, teachers, small proprietors, and ambitious youths. Be Good to Yourself aligns with this democratized culture of uplift by urging routines of reading, reflection, and physical care rather than costly cures. Its steady, didactic tone suits institutions that prized method and habit, making personal renewal appear as teachable as bookkeeping or penmanship.
Progressive reform also advanced public health, pure food laws, playgrounds, and physical culture, exemplified by Bernarr Macfadden’s popular campaigns. Labor movements pressed for shorter hours and Saturday half-holidays, linking rest to citizenship and safety. Middle-class leisure—from nature outings to amateur athletics—gained legitimacy. Be Good to Yourself endorses such currents by presenting recreation and sleep as investments rather than indulgences, compatible with efficiency and civic usefulness. Its counsel echoes the period’s belief that bodily hygiene, fresh air, and temperance improved judgment and work. In translating reform-era health ideals into household practice, the book integrates individual well-being with social productivity.
Commercial publishing and mail-order distribution allowed self-help titles to reach readers in small towns and cities alike, often in inexpensive cloth editions marketed alongside office manuals. Marden, whose early bestseller Pushing to the Front (1894) had established his reputation, wrote Be Good to Yourself for this mass audience in the early twentieth century. The work reflects its era’s buoyant faith in self-mastery, yet it gently critiques the excesses of hustle by insisting that success requires rest, dignity, and proportion. In blending New Thought optimism with Progressive health sensibilities, it offers a tempered creed: ambition guided by conscience and sustained by care.
BE GOOD TO YOURSELF
Chapter I. Be Good To Yourself
It is a rare thing to find a person who is really masterful in his personality, masterful in what he undertakes; who approaches his task with the assurance of a conqueror; who is able to grapple vigorously with his life problems; who always keeps himself in condition to do his best, biggest thing easily, without strain; who seizes with the grip of a master the precious opportunities which come to him.
In order to keep himself at the top of his condition, to obtain complete mastery of all his powers and possibilities, a man must be good to himself mentally, he must think well of himself.
Some one has said that the man who depreciates himself blasphemes God, who created him in His own image and pronounced him perfect. Very few people think well enough of themselves, have half enough esteem for their divine origin or respect for their ability, their character, or the sublimity of their possibilities; hence the weakness and ineffectiveness of their careers.
People who persist in seeing the weak, the diseased, the erring side of themselves; who believe they have inherited a taint from their ancestors; who think they do not amount to much and never will; who are always exaggerating their defects; who see only the small side of themselves, never grow into that bigness of manhood and grandeur of womanhood which God intended for them. They, hold in their minds this little, mean, contemptible, dried-up image of themselves until the dwarfed picture becomes a reality. Their appearance, their lives, outpicture their poor opinion of themselves, express their denial of the grandeur and sublimity of their possibilities. They actually think themselves into littleness, meanness, weakness.
“As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he[1][1q].” His opinion of himself will be reproduced by the life processes within him and outpictured in his body. If you would make the most of yourself, never picture yourself as anything different from what yon would actually be, the man or woman you long to become. Whenever you think of yourself, form a mental image of a perfect, healthy, beautiful, noble being, not lacking in anything, but possessing every desirable quality. Positively refuse to see anything about yourself which would detract from your personality. Insist upon seeing only the truth of your being, the man or woman God had in mind when he made you, not the distorted thing, the burlesque man or woman, which your ignorance and unfortunate environment, wrong thinking and vicious living have produced. The estimate you have of yourself, the image of yourself which you carry in your mind, will mean infinitely more to you than other people may think of you.
If we would make the most of our lives, if we would be and do all that it is possible for us to be and to do, we must not only think well of ourselves, but we must also be just to ourselves physically, be good to our bodies. In order to be the highest, the most efficient type of man or woman, it is just as necessary to cultivate the body, to develop its greatest possible strength and beauty, as it is to cultivate the mind, to raise it to its highest power.
There are plenty of people who are good to others, but are not good to themselves. They do not take care of their own health, their own bodies, do not conserve their own energies, husband their own resources. They are slaves to others, tyrants to themselves.
Faithfulness to others is a most desirable trait, yet faithfulness to yourself is just as much of a requisite. It is as great a sin not to be good to yourself as not to be good to others. It is every one’s sacred duty to keep himself up to the. highest possible standard, physically and mentally, otherwise he can not deliver his divine message, in its entirety, to the world. It is every one's sacred duty to keep himself in a condition to do the biggest thing possible to him. It is a positive sin to keep oneself in a depleted, rundown, exhausted state, so that he can not answer his life call or any big demand that an emergency may make upon him.
There are many people of a high order of ability who do very ordinary work in life, whose careers are most disappointing, simply because they do not keep themselves in a physical and mental condition to do their best.
In every place of business we find employees who are only about half awake, half alive; their bodies are full of dead cells, poisoned cells, because of vicious living, vicious thinking, vicious habits. Is it any wonder that they get so little out of life when they; put so little into it?
I know men in middle life who are just where they were when they left school or college. They have not advanced a particle; some have even retrograded, and they can not understand why they do not get on, why they are not more successful. But every one who knows them sees the great handicaps of indifference to their health, neglect of their physical needs, dissipation, irregular living, slipshod, slovenly habits, all sorts of things which are keeping them down, handicaps which even intellectual giants could not drag along with them and make any kind of progress.
Everywhere we see young men and women crippled in their careers, plodding along in mediocrity, capable of great things, but doing little things, because they have not vitality enough to push their way and overcome the obstacles in their path. They have not been good to their physical selves.
An author’s book is wishy-washy, does not get hold of the reader because he had no vigor, no surplus vitality, to put into it. The book does not arouse because the author was not aroused when he wrote it. It is lifeless because of the writer’s low state of vitality.
The clergyman does not get hold of his people because he lacks stamina, force and physical vitality. He is a weakling mentally because he is a weakling physically. The teacher does not arouse or inspire his pupil because he lacks life and enthusiasm himself. His brain and nerves are fagged, his energy exhausted, burned out, his strength depleted, because he has not been good to himself.
Everywhere we see these devitalized people, without spontaneity, buoyancy, or enthusiasm in their endeavor. They have no joy in their work. It is merely enforced drudgery, a dreary, monotonous routine.
The great problem in manufacturing is to get the largest possible results with the least possible expenditure, the least wear and tear of machinery. Men study the economy in their business of getting the maximum return with the minimum expenditure, and yet many of these men who are so shrewd and level-headed in their business pay very little attention to the economy of their personal power expenditure.
Most of us are at war with ourselves, are our own worst enemies. We expect a great deal of ourselves, yet we do not put ourselves in a condition to achieve great things. We are either too indulgent to our bodies, or we are not indulgent enough. We pamper them, or we neglect them, and it would be hard to tell which mode of treatment produces the worst results. Few people treat their bodies with the same wise care and consideration that they bestow upon a valuable piece of machinery or property of any kind from which they expect large returns.
Take the treatment of the digestive apparatus, for instance, which really supplies the motor power for the whole body, and we will find that most of us do not give it half a .chance to do its work properly. The energy of the digestive organs of many people is exhausted in trying to take care of superfluous food for which there is absolutely no demand in the system. So much energy is used up trying to assimilate surplus, unnecessary food, improper food, that there is none left to assimilate and digest that which is actually needed.
Men are constantly violating the laws of health, eating all sorts of incompatible, indigestible foods, often when the stomach is exhausted and unable to take care of simple food. They fill it with a great variety of rich, indigestible stuffs, retard the digestive processes with harmful drinks, then wonder why they are unfit for work, and resort to all sorts of stimulants and drugs to overcome the bad effects of their greediness and foolishness.
Many go to the other extreme and do not take enough food or get enough variety in what they do eat, so that some of their tissues are in a chronic condition of semi-starvation.
The result is that while there is a great overplus of certain elements in some parts of the system, there is a famine of different kinds of elements in other parts of the system. This inequality, disproportion, tends to unbalance and produce a lack of symmetry in the body, and induces abnormal appetites that often lead to drinking or other dissipation. Many people resort to dangerous drugs in their effort to satisfy the craving of the starved cells in the various tissues when what they really need is nourishing food.
There are only twelve different kinds of tissues in the body and their needs are very simple. For instance, almost every demand in the entire system can be satisfied by milk and eggs, though, of course, a more varied diet is desirable, and should always be adjusted to suit one’s vocation and activities. Yet, notwithstanding the simple demands of nature, how complicated our living has become!
If we would only study the needs of our bodies as we study the needs of the plants in our gardens, and give them the proper amount and variety of food, with plenty of water, fresh air, and sunshine, we would not be troubled with disordered stomachs, indigestion, biliousness, headache, or any other kind of pain or ache.
If we used common sense in our diet, lived a plain, sane, simple life, we would never need to take medicine. But the way many of us live is a crime against nature, against manhood, against our possibilities.
It is amazing that otherwise shrewd, sensible men can deceive themselves into practicing petty economies which are in reality ruinous extravagances.
No good mechanic would for a moment think of using tools that are out of order. Think of a barber trying to run a first-class shop with dull razors! Think of a carpenter or cabinet-maker attempting to turn out finished work with dull chisels, saws, planes, or other tools!
The man who wants to do a fine piece of work, whether it be the painting of a picture or the building of a house, must have everything with which he works in the best possible condition, otherwise the quality of his work will suffer.
The great thing in life is efficiency. If you amount to anything in the world, your time is valuable, your energy precious. They are your success capital and you can not afford to heedlessly throw them away or trifle with them.
Whatever else you do, husband your strength, save your vitality, hang on to it with the determination with which a drowning man seizes and clings to a log or spar at sea. Store up every bit of your physical force, for it is your achievement material, your manhood timber. Having this, the man who has no money is rich compared with the man of wealth who has squandered his vitality, thrown away his precious life energy. Gold is but dross compared with this, diamonds but rubbish; houses and lands are contemptible beside it.
Dissipators of precious vitality are the wickedest kind of spendthrifts; they are worse than money spendthrifts; they are suicides, for they are killing their every chance in life.
Of what use is ability if you can not use it, of forces that are demoralized, weakened by petty, false economies; what use is great brain power, even genius, if you are physically weak, if your vitality is so reduced either by vicious living or lack of proper care, that your energy becomes exhausted with the very least effort?
To be confronted by a great opportunity of which you are powerless to take advantage, because you have let your energy leak away in useless, vicious ways, or to feel that you can only take hold of your great chance tremblingly, weakly, with doubt instead of assurance and a consciousness of vigor, is one of the most disheartening experiences that can ever come to a human being.
If you would make the most of yourself, cut away all of your vitality sappers, get rid of everything which hampers you and holds you back, everything which wastes your energy, cuts down your working capital. Get freedom at any cost. Do not drag about with you a body that is half dead through vicious habits, which sap your vitality and drain off your life forces. Do not do anything or touch anything which will lower your vitality or lessen your chances of advancement. Always ask yourself, “What is there in this thing I am going to do which will add to my life-work, increase my power, keep me in superb condition to do the best thing possible to me?”
Much precious energy is wasted in fretting, worrying, grumbling, fault-finding, in the little frictions and annoyances that accomplish nothing, but merely make you irritable, cripple and exhaust you. Just look back over yesterday and see where your energy went to. See how much of it leaked away in trifles and in vicious practices. You may have lost more brain and nerve force in a burst of passion, a fit of hot temper, than in doing your normal work in an entire day.
Some people are very careful to keep the pianos in their homes in tune, but they never trouble themselves about the human instruments which are out of tune most of the time. They try to play the great life symphonies on a living instrument that is jangled and out of tune, and then wonder why they produce discord instead of harmony.
The great aim of your life should be to keep your powers up to the highest possible standard, to so conserve your energies, guard your health, that you can make every occasion a great occasion.
The trouble with most of us is that we do not half appreciate the marvelousness of the human mechanism, nor the divinity of the man that dwells in it.
“Man is an infinite little copy of God,” says Victor Hugo. “That is glory enough for man. . . . Little as I am, I feel the God in me.”
Unfortunately most of us do not feel the God in us, we do not realize our powers and possibilities. We lose sight of our divinity. We live in our animal senses instead of rising into the Godlike faculties. We crawl when we might fly.
Chapter II. Economy That Costs Too Much
A Paris bank clerk, who was carrying a bag of gold through the streets, dropped a ten-franc piece[2], which rolled from the sidewalk. He set his bag down to look for the lost piece, and, While he was trying to extricate it from the gutter, some one stole his bag and ran away with it.
I know a rich man who has become such a slave to the habit of economizing, formed when he was trying to get a start in the world, that he has not been able to break away from it, and he will very often lose a dollar’s worth of valuable time trying to save a dime.
He goes through his home and turns the gas down so low that it is almost impossible to get around without stumbling over chairs. Several members of his family have received injuries from running against half-open doors, or stumbling over furniture in the dark; and once, while I was present, a member of the family spilt a bottle of ink upon a costly carpet in passing from one room to another in the darkness.
This man, although now wealthy, tears off the unused half-sheets of letters, cuts out the backs of envelopes for scribbling paper, and is constantly spending time trying to save little things which are utterly out of proportion to the value to him of the time thus consumed. He carries the same spirit of niggardly economy into his business. He makes his employees save strings from bundles as a matter of principle, even if it takes twice as much time as the string is worth, and practices all sorts of trifling economies equally foolish.
True economy is not stinginess or meanness[2q]. It often means very large outlay, for it always has the larger end in view. True economy means the wisest expenditure of what we have, everything considered, looking at it from the broadest standpoint. It is not a good thing to save a nickel at the expenditure of twenty-five cents’ worth of time.
Comparatively few people have a healthy view of what real saving, or economy, means. Many have been run over by street cars or other vehicles in New York while trying to recover a dropped package, a hat, an umbrella, or a cane.
I know a young man who has lost many opportunities for advancement, and a large amount of business, by false economy in dress, and smallness regarding expenditures. He believes that a suit of clothes and a necktie should be worn until they are threadbare. He would never think of inviting a customer or a prospective customer to luncheon, or of offering to pay his car fare (if he happened to be traveling with him). He has such a reputation for being stingy, even to meanness, that people do not like to do business with him. False economy has cost this man very dear.
Many people injure their health seriously by trying to save money. If you are ambitious to do your best work, beware of economies that cost too much.
No ambitious person can afford to feed his brain with poor diet or wrong fuel. To do so would be as foolhardy as for a great factory to burn shavings and refuse material because good coal was too expensive. Whatever you do, however poor you may be, don’t stint or try to economize in the food fuel, which is the very foundation and secret of your success in life. Economize in other things if you must, wear threadbare clothes if necessary, but never cheat your body or brain by the quality and quantity of your food. Poor, cheap food which produces low vitality and inferior brain force is the worst kind of economy[3q].
There are lots of ambitious people with mistaken ideas of economy who rarely ever get the kind and quality of food which is capable of making the best blood and the best brain. Who that is anxious to make the most of his life can afford to stint and starve upon foods that are incapable of making him do the best thing possible to him?
The ambitious farmer selects the finest ears of corn and the finest grain, fruits, and vegetables for seed. He can not afford to cumber his precious soil with bad seed. Can the man who is ambitious to make the most of himself afford to eat cheap, stale foods, which have lost their great energizing principle?
Everywhere we see business men patronizing cheap restaurants, eating indigestible food, drinking cheap, diluted or “doctored” milk, saving a little money, but taking a great deal out of themselves.
