The Satisfied Man

                                                        THE SATISFIED MAN

          F.W.ROBERTSON has said “Whoever is satisfied with what he does has reached the culmination point-he will progress no more. Man’s destiny is to be not dissatisfied, but forever unsatisfied.”

            

            One of the saddest things in life is to see men and women who started out with high hope and proud ambitions settle down in mediocre positions, half satisfied just merely to get a living, to plod along indifferently.

            

            Oh, what tragedy there is in being content with mediocrity, in getting in to state where one is indifferent to the larger, better things of life!

            

            When your satisfied with the life your living, with the work you’re doing, with the thought your thinking, with the dreams your dreaming, satisfied with character your building, with your ideals, you may be sure that your already beginning to deteriorate.

            

            There is little hope for the man who feels satisfied with himself, who does not know “The noble discontent that stirs the acorn to become an oak.” Man’s ambition to improve something somewhere every day to get a little further on and a little higher up then he was a day before, a burning passion for better human things all along the line, is the of human progress.

            

            Do you realize, that if the motive were big enough, if you had a very unusual incentive, you could materially improve upon what you now are satisfied to consider your best endeavor? As an employee you may think you are doing your level best, and are conscientious, loyal, true and industrious; and yet, if a great prize should be offered you to bring your work up to a certain higher standard for the next sixty days, would you rest until you had succeeded in very greatly improving what you now think is your best work?

            

            Don’t you think, you who pride yourself that it would be impossible to better what you are now doing, that if your name were over the door as proprietor instead of the name of the company you work for you could up yourself about fifty per cent; that you would find some way of doing it? Don’t you think you would be a little more ambitious, make little better use of your time, that you would try to call out a little more ingenuity and effectiveness, a little more resourcefulness? Do you think you would jog along in the same halfhearted manner, thinking more of your salary than of your opportunity to absorb the secrets of your employer’s success? Do you think you would stand by without protest and see the merchandised injured, or wasted, when you could stop it; or that you would be so careless or make so many blunders yourself? Don’t you think the prize to be gained would make you take a little more interest in things than you do now; make you a little more alert, more eager for the success of the business?

            

            It is deplorable sight to see so many young men and young women apparently so satisfied with themselves, with what they are going, that they have no great yearnings, no insatiable longing for something higher and better.

            

            Multitudes of capable employees are satisfied to plod along in mediocrity instead of rising of the heights, where there ability would naturally carry them. I have a friend who has a much superior brain to the man he is working for, and yet for a great many years he has been on a ordinary salary. He has never married. He takes life in an easygoing way and whenever I have tried to encourage him he always says, “Why should I exert myself more or take on greater business responsibilities? I have nobody but myself to consider. I like to have a good time, and don’t want any more worry, and anxiety although I know perfectly well I could do it if I wanted to.”

            

            Of course, the higher up in the world a man gets the greater his responsibility, but think of the satisfaction which comes from consciousness that he has made the most of his talents, that he has no buried any of them in a napkin, the satisfaction which comes from the feeling that he has made good, that he has delivered his message to the world and delivered it like a man, that he has full filled his mission, that he has made the most possible of the material and the opportunities given him. The feeling that he has no regrets, that he has done his level best more than compensates for any additional effort and greater responsibility.

            

            We tend to become our aspirations. If we constantly aspire and strive for something better and higher and nobler, we cannot help broadening and improving. The ambition that is dominant in the mind tends to work itself out in the life. If this ambition sordid and low and animal, we shall develop this qualities, for our lives follow our ideals.

            

            Civilization has its greatest advancement under the stress necessity. Under the leadership of the great ambition to satisfy the heart’s yearnings for better things desperately to match our dreams with their reality.

            

            The struggle of man to rise a little higher, to get in to a little more comfortable position, to secure a little better education, a little better home, to gain a little more culture and refinement, to possess that power which comes from being In a position of broader and wider influence through the acquirement of property, is what has developed the character and stamina of our highest types of manhood today. This upward life trend gives others confidence in us.

            

            When we have attained little success, when we have gained a little public applause, how many of us think we can relax our efforts, and before we realize it our ambition has disappeared, our energy evaporated. A sort of sluggish inactivity comes over us and lulls us into inaction.

            

            First success, and especially early success, to many act like an opiate (sleep inducer). They are overcome with inertia which only an unsatisfied and determined ambition can overcome. It takes more grit and a stronger will to force ourselves to do our level best after we have demonstrated without doubt that we have the ability to do what we undertake, than it does to achieve the actual first success itself.

            

            One of the greatest enemy of ambition is personal inertia (getting into a rut), and it is one of the hardest things to overcome. The temptation to slide along the line of the least resistance, to get in to a comfortable position and take once ease, is so strong that many allow it to master them. The ambition is not persistent enough or strenuous enough to shame them out of their inertia, or prod them on to greater things. Mediocrity is often a premium upon laziness. The poet tells us,

                                                

                                       “He who would the heights sublime,

                                            Or breathe the purer air of life,

                                             Must not expect to rest in ease,

                                         But brace himself for toil or strife.”

            

            One of the most discouraging problems in the world is that of trying to help the ambitionless, the half satisfied, those who have not discontent enough in their natures to push them on, initiative enough to begin things, persistency enough to keep going.

            

            If a young man is apparently satisfied to drift along in a humdrum way, half content with his accomplishments, undisturbed by the fact that he has used but a very small part of himself, a very small percentage of his real ability, that is energies are running to wastes in all sorts of ways, you cannot do much with him, If he lacks ambition, life, energy and vigor-is willing to slide along the line of the least resistance and exerts himself as little as possible, there is nothing upon which to build.

            

            It is the young man who is not satisfied with what he does, and who is determined to better his best every day, who struggles to express the ideal, to make the possible in him a reality, that wins. Activity is the law of growth; effort the only means of improvement. Whenever men have obeyed their lower nature and ceased to struggle to better their condition, deteriorated physically, mentally and morally; while just in proposition as they have striven honestly and insistently to improve their situation, they have developed a larger and nobler human type.

            

            When a man who is said to be the highest salaried official in the United States we asked to give the secret of his success, he replied, “I haven’t succeeded. No real man ever succeeds. There is always a larger goal ahead.”

            

             It is a small man who succeeds in his own estimation. Really great man ever reach their goal, because they are constantly pushing their horizon further and further, getting a broader vision, a larger outlook, and their ambition grows with their achievement.

            

            If you are getting a fair salary in a mediocre position there is a danger of hypnotizing yourself, into the belief that there is no need to exert yourself very much to get up higher. There is danger of limiting your ambition so that you will be half content to remain a perpetual clerk when you have the ability to do much better.

            

            This satisfaction with the lesser, when the greater is possible, often results from relatives or friends telling you that you are doing well, And that you would better let well enough alone. These advisors says; “don’t take chances with a certainty. It is true you are not getting a very big salary, but it is a sure thing, and if you give it up with the hope of something better you may do worse.” Don’t let anyone or any conditions make you think you have not the ability to match your longings, wrapped up in every human being there are energies which, if unfolded, concentrated, and given proper attention will develop his highest ideal.

            

            Our longings are creative principles, prophesies, indicative of potencies equal to the task of actual achievement. These latent potencies are not given mock us. There are no sealed orders wrapped within the brain without the accompanying ability to execute them.

            

            When you once a glimpse of yourself as you were intended by your maker to be, will all of your latent possibilities developed into realities; when you once see yourself as the superb man it is possible for you to be, nothing and no one but yourself can prevent you from attaining your ambition.

            

            It is only the man who has stopped growing that feels satisfied with his achievements. The growing man feels a great lack of wholeness, of completeness. Everything in him seems to be unfinished because it is growing. The expanding man is always dissatisfied with his accomplishment, is always reaching out for something larger, fuller, completer.

              Wish you all have a satisfied life - HAKKIM RAJA.S