| Making the Most of Life |
Chapter 19 |
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The real problem of living, therefore, is how to take what the hours bring. He who does this, will live nobly and faithfully, and will fulfill God’s plan for his life. The difference in men is not in the opportunities that come to them, but in their use of their opportunities. Many people who fail to make much of their life, charge their failure to the lack of opportunities. They look at one who is continually doing good and beautiful things, or great and noble things, and think that he is specially favoured, that the chances which come to him for such things are exceptional. Really, however, it is in his capacity for seeing and accepting what the hours bring of duty or privilege that his success lays. Where other men see nothing, he sees a battle to fight, a duty to perform, a service to render, or an honour to win. Many a man waits long for opportunities, wondering why they never come to him, when really they have been passing by him day after day, unrecognized and unaccepted.
There is a legend of an artist, who long sought for a piece of sandal wood out of which to carve a Madonna. At last he was about to give up in despair, leaving the vision of his life unrealized, when in a dream he was bidden to shape the figure from a block of oak wood, which was destined for the fire. Obeying the command, he produced from the log of common firewood a masterpiece.
In like manner many people wait for great and brilliant opportunities for doing the good things, the beautiful things, of which they dream, while through all the plain, common days, the very opportunities they require for such deeds lie close to them, in the simplest and most familiar passing events, and in the homeliest circumstances. They wait to find sandal wood out of which to carve Madonnas, while far more lovely Madonnas than they dream of are hidden in the common logs of oak they burn in their open fireplace, or spurn with their feet in the wood yard.
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