The Law of Tooth and Claw

I used to work right by a major east-west freeway. Every day I would would watch hours of streaming traffic. I would longingly imagine where those people were vacationing and want to be in their places. Then one day it dawned on me:

HALF THOSE PEOPLE were not going off on a wonderful vacation;
they were heading back home to a boring job they hated.

I've done jobs so boring and lonely that it took three years just to get through one afternoon. I'd like to tell you that I grew calluses that served good purpose in business later, but all the calluses were on the other end of my thinker. All I learned was to keep pushing, 14, 16, 18, 20 hours a day, 7 days a week, 361 days a year and never let up off the hammer until the nails were all driven deep and locked tight.

Success isn't all that easy either. I'll bet there are days when even Bill Gates feels like his brain is a fried oyster.

Some days I get to straightening out a web page or an ebook and nothing goes right and that memory of "the good old days" turns on bright, the sure knowledge clinks into place that I have everything it takes to keep on going while everyone else is rushing off on vacation, or headed home to plop out in front of the TV. I will get done. I will do it right; the habit of completing the job has been drilled into me hour after hour and day after day until it is no longer a habit; it is me. It was me that made me go; not the boss. So when there was no boss I Kept right on doing those things which made me more successful.

I grew up on a farm, and hated it because I never got to go anywhere. After three business failures we came back to the farm and worked off (at minimum wage) the debts I had piled up. Six kids were grown before I got those debts paid and got off the farm. A lot more sure-footed and nimble, I made it that time in a dream job -- writing feature stories on people anywhere I stopped, anywhere in the United States. Ten years, 15 years of success later I realized that there was a big hole in my life.

It was the farm. I missed the farm. How could anyone miss that much hard work and pure sweat? I don't know but occasionally I even miss getting up at 02:00 to milk a hundred head of cows. I said occasionally -- I wouldn't go back permanently to dairy farming for anything, but I do enjoy dropping in once in a while to see how the udder half lives these days.

Success achieved too easily is all too likely to slip away while you rest on your laurels, or take off on a lingering series of vacation. I'll bet even Bill Gates comes back to his office once in a while.

I was studying a picture of Queen Wilhelmina yesterday, resenting all her jewels, her throne pitched in the lap of luxury. "How can anyone revere a fat slob like that?" I wondered. Then I gazed into her eyes and saw the same boredom there I'd had in milking cows, and the question hanging -- "Will this day ever end?"

Well, the days do end and the years do pass, and the way you handle today will largely determine how your tomorrows become. If you are frantic now when things get tight you will be frantic then when the noose tightens. I can guarantee the noose will tighten. Even Bill Gates has competition that wants to take customers away from him. It will be no different in your business.

If your every waking moment is spent in desperate yearnings for a better way of life you will be struggling in success too, either for more success, or just to keep what success you have.

So, the days will pass and the years fly by and which past do you want your kids to remember, that "Mama was always off irrigating!" or that "and then on MY DAY Mama took me irrigating with her!"

Maybe you can't share space with your family while you are dumping the fruit into the hopper, but you can share the success of doing it, and share the satisfaction of doing it like a winner. Just as sure as God made little green apples to dump into the Cheerios your future attitude towards life is being boxed up right now by the attitude you are wrapping around your heart.

Success usually comes to those so good at what they are doing that they make it look easy. Joseph did not become ruler of all Egypt because Jacob gave him all the soft jobs, or because he won the lottery. Joseph became ruler because he measured up to the circumstances he found himself in, and mastered them.

Lin Stone is an author, writer and photographer living in Mena Arkansas among the gentle mountains known as Ouachita. His articles and essays are syndicated by talewins to be published automatically on other web sites. He writes about adventures and he writes about the peaceable things of this world for Share Your State. In his spare time Lin writes copy for American Insurance Depot. You can have immediate, and free, reading of many more pieces when you send your little surfer scooting to Lin's home page at http://www.talewins.com/StoneSoup.htm where he keeps stirring up more good things for the soul.

And then, we have these essays in the GENERAL ESSAYS category
which don't seem to fit anywhere in particular:

That first day of school

Moonbeams are the original fuzzy kind of logic. If you've ever seen a tree turn into a gnome, or remember your first kiss upon the sweet silver grass, you won't want to miss this nostalgic essay of a way of life that maybe only seemed to be.

Friendship, by Ralph Waldo Emerson. A ruddy drop of manly blood The surging sea outweighs, The world uncertain comes and goes, The lover rooted stays. I fancied he was fled, And, after many a year, Glowed unexhausted kindliness Like daily sunrise there. My careful heart was free again, -- O friend, my bosom said, Through thee alone the sky is arched, Through thee the rose is red, All things through thee take nobler form, And look beyond the earth, And is the mill-round of our fate A sun-path in thy worth. Me too thy nobleness has taught To master my despair; The fountains of my hidden life Are through thy friendship fair.

A Break From Boredom -- by Lance Nalley

This Web is MY Web

The Moon on Six Pence Uncle Bob was an unforgettable character who traveled the world on bargain rates and golden smiles!

The Almost Good Housekeeping monograph is a good excuse for the harried homemaker to put off until tomorrow all those burdens of yesteryear, and quit trying so hard.

Sex before the Sax: The first thing I learned about Lois was she had a label for being froward. Kids at school said she had had sex with Alfred. Not long after I arrived, another boy came forward to admit he had made a score at her door.

God Does Not Fit -- by Lance Nalley

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