A DAILY MESSAGE

Hokitika Guardian, 20 October 1928, Page 1

A DAILY MESSAGE

START CLIMBING TO-DAY Thk cabin-boy who does not see bin self on the captain’s bridge will neve have occasion to trouble the size c the captain’s cap. I he office-boy who does not see him self in the manager’s chair w.ill neve have his legs under the manager’s desi —at any rate, to stav.

The men and women who have climbed up in this old world are those who have kept their eye on the top rung of the ladder, even when they were down at the very bottom rung. They have climbed up because they have felt themselves climbing—seen themselves climbing—pictured themselves climbing up—up into the position they desire. In other words, they have thought themselves up—climbed up mentally before they climbed up actually. They have continually and persistently fixed it in their minds that they could reach a certain position, and the moment of so fixing was the moment when they began to climb. Belief in your ability to climb is a condition precedent to climbing; those who have climbed must have believed they could. They knew they could — otherwise they could not—and they did. If you are more or less a failure, a half-success—if you are not doing the tilings you want to do—there is something wrong. No doubt about that. But what is wrong is wrong with tU climber, not with, the ladder. The lad der is there; if you’re not climbing, ii is because your thoughts are not climbers’ thoughts. They hold you down to that bottom rung. You are the true result of your past

thinking. What you have thought, said, done, and supported makes you just what you are. Why not start climbing to-clay? —M. PRESTON STANLEY.