Dollars and Sense Part 13

Cigarets

We cannot call to mind a single instance where the habitual cigaret smoker got to the top of the ladder and held his position. We see heads of large establishments smoke cigarets, but the habit was acquired after the position was attained.

The cigaret smoker suffers from lapses of memory, his nerves are shattered, his judgment is not good, he forgets things and is irritable. He cannot hope to compete with the clear-brained individual who does not smoke cigarets.

It is not the cigaret itself that does the harm, it is the smoke inhaled into the delicate lung tissue. This smoke covers the lungs with yellow nicotine, carbon and poisonous gases.

Some men smoke pipes because they wish to escape the criticism to which the cigaret smoker is subject. The pipe smoker who inhales does himself more injury than the cigaret smoker who inhales, because the pipe smoker takes in more smoke.

Go to the medical college dissecting room and see the lungs of a man who inhaled smoke, and you will quit the habit if you have been guilty.

Don't burn your lungs with cigaret smoke, or pipe smoke either.

The fight to get to the front is hard enough anyway, and if you want to win, do not poison your blood with tobacco smoke.

Return Good For Evil

One of the first laws was "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,"

but as time went on and man developed mentally his animal instincts were subordinated and the law was changed, and the new law was this: "return good for evil."

Nearly every man who has an injury done him tries to repay the injury.

He must either repay it with good or with evil. If he repays it with evil he does not get satisfaction. If he repays it with good he gets happiness. It is certain that payment of evil with good can satisfy a man who is looking for revenge, while it has always been a question whether there is any satisfaction in paying evil with evil.

If a man does you a mean turn he is expecting you will repay him in like manner. He guards himself against this. He is ready for your revenge, but if you repay him with good you attack him in a weak spot and make him feel like thirty cents, and this is all the revenge you can ask for.

It is all right to get square with a man who does you a wrong, and the best way to get square is by doing him a good turn.

You should keep mental ledger accounts with all of your friends and all your enemies. When a person does you an injury, debit him until you have a chance to credit his account with some good turn; when you credit his account be sure you overpay what you are owing him, so you will have a balance coming to your credit.

We have been taught to return good for evil, but we have heard the saying so many times that few of us pay any attention to it.

It's worth while testing, this rule of returning good for evil. The next time someone harms you, repay him by doing him a kindness, and see if you don't feel happier, and at the same time get all the satisfaction you are looking for. It matters not whether the person to whom you have done a kindness appreciates it; you have been benefited and received happiness by your own act, for virtue is its own reward.

The man who returns good for evil, has the satisfaction of the man who has on clean underwear, the world may not know it but he does, and that is all that is necessary.

Learn to Play

Nature has given us many positives and negatives. It has given us the ability to work hard, and it has given us the ability to play hard.

Work while you work and play while you play. The man who is successful is the man who works hard during business hours, and then goes home and leaves his office behind him and takes up play.

A man should devote a part of each day to recreation, to outdoor exercise, to frivolity and to frollicking with his children at home. If he does not care to play, worry will take the place of play.

Worry and hard work together will kill a man. Work and play will make him live.

No two things can occupy the same s.p.a.ce at the same time. These brains of ours are always busy, and we should be careful what we give the brain to act upon.

If we work hard all day, the tendency is that in the evening the brain revolves the things that have been going through it during the day. A review of these thoughts produces worry, especially if our occupation has been a strenuous one and if things have not been to our liking.

When we devote ourselves to play, then worry and brain rack will be absent all the time we are playing. Play was made to rest the brain.

Your sleep will be better if you have indulged in recreation, and your mind will be clearer the next morning.

Good Fellows.h.i.+p

Call a man a fellow and he will resent it, call him a good fellow and he feels complimented.

The good fellow is ever found where pleasures abound. He s.h.i.+nes at the dinner. His knowledge of mixed drinks is a revelation.

The good fellow spends his time where the gla.s.ses clink, where the horses run, and where the revelers congregate. His earnings go for dinners, bottles and shows, and while these occupy his mind he imagines he is having a good time, that his actions evidence "good fellows.h.i.+p."

Go to the clubs and you will see the "good fellow." He is spoken of by all the other "good fellows" as a "good fellow." And they are all good fellows together.

Some day the good fellow is taken sick and dies. He has not a cent to his name, and the other good fellows take up a collection to bury him.

The only persons at the funeral are the other good fellows, and the only requiem he receives is "Well, he was a good fellow."

The good fellow at fifty is working for the good business man. The good fellow is like the b.u.t.terfly, and sips life's pleasures, and shows off his fancy colors, living for today only.

The successful man is like the ant, he works and puts something away each day, where he can get at it in the future.

When winter comes with its chilling blasts, the b.u.t.terfly has nothing in reserve and it starves to death, while the ant keeps himself alive on the product of his own labor.

Some day the good fellow finds himself in need. He goes to other good fellows, but they can't help him because they are in the same boat themselves. Then our good fellow grows pessimistic, and finds out too late that it does not pay to be a good fellow.

Good fellows don't get good jobs very often. When they do get them they don't hold them very long.

It is a mighty poor recommendation to be referred to as a good fellow.

People seem to think that the words "good fellow" cover a mult.i.tude of sins, and when a man has done wrong, or makes a mistake, or uses bad judgment, the other good fellows try to excuse his faults by saying--"Well, he is a good fellow, anyhow."

The good fellow bursts upon us with his halo about him. As time pa.s.ses the halo dims and the good fellow peters out.

The good fellow who is so popular at the Club today is found tomorrow trying to eke out an existence selling books and life insurance to other good fellows.

There is nothing in good fellows.h.i.+p that can be negotiated at the bank.

The credit man of the wholesale house does not give credit on good fellows.h.i.+p.