Remember, my son, you have to work. Whether you handle a pick or pen, a wheelbarrow or a set of books, dig ditches or edit a paper, ring an auction bell or write funny things – you must work. If you look around, you will see that the men who are the most able are the men who work the hardest. Don’t be afraid of killing yourself with overwork. It is beyond your power to do that on the sunny side of thirty. They die sometimes, but it’s because they quit work at six P.M. It’s the interval that kills, my son. The work gives you a perfect and grateful appreciation of a holiday. There are young men who do not work, but the world is not proud of them; it simply speaks of them as old So-and-So’s boy. Nobody likes them; the great busy world doesn’t know that they are there. So find out what you want to be and do, and take off your coat and make dust in the world. The busier you are the less harm you will be apt to get into, the sweeter will be your sleep, the brighter and happier your holidays, and the better satisfied the world will be with you.
-Exchange.
