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I DARE YOU TO BE STRONG
Ioften wonder what would have happened to me if my old school teacher, George Warren Krall, hadnât dared me to be the healthiest boy in my class. Certainly I would not have dared what I have tried to accomplish. Sickness robs us of time, courage and money. Wealth canât buy health but health can buy wealth.
Many a young man, today, starting out on a road he hopes will lead to success, looks at men of affairs who have gone before him and tries to select those attributes which will lead him into that charmed circle of successful men. He will find, however, it is pretty difficult to determine just what are the essentials of a successful career. Some leaders are tall men, some are short men, some are men from the country, some from the city. Some are men with college background, others are men whose only schooling was âreading, âriting and ârithmetic.â Some are geniuses, some are pluggers. In an issue of Fortune, I read an article that gives a brief word picture of a dozen or more of the leading executives of the General Motors Corporation. Each man is a distinct personalityâno two came from the same environment, but I did find one common attribute of every single one of them. That is energy. I think if you look for the propelling force of any successful executive, you will find it is energy. True, you may find an occasional man who has succeeded in spite of the lack of energy, but for every one of such you will find twenty or thirty have succeeded because of it.
Every time I met Walter Pitkin he fired at me questions such as these:
1.Have I a capacity for hard work?
2.Can I keep everlastingly at it?
3.Have I sustained âPep and Punchâ?
4.Do I maintain a high batting average?
5.What is my ability to spurt?
These are questions that stir me to the depths. How can you maintain energy without health? In our own company, every employee in both office and field must pass a physical examination before he can come on our payroll. Afterward he must pass a rigid physical examination once a year. Why? Because a fit employee does things. Heâs worth more than an unfit one.
I like the way Huxley expresses this game of life. â. . . It is very plain that the life, the fortune and the happiness of everyone of us do depend upon our knowing something of the rules of a game infinitely more difficult and complicated than chess. It is a game which has been played for untold ages, every man and woman of us being one of the two players in a game of his or her own. The chessboard is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just and patient. But also we know to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance. To the man who plays well the highest stakes are paid with that sort of overflowing generosity with which the strong show delight in strength. And one who plays ill is checkmatedâwithout haste but without remorse.â
If you were trying to make the football team this fall or the basketball team next winter, would you object to eating at the training table, getting regular sleep and going through the rigorous but stimulating body-building program that would make you fit when the crucial test came? Every day is a crucial test in the game of life. The longer you live the better will you understand that fact. Every time you take liberties with your physical strength, such as eating or drinking things that do not agree with you, or losing sleep, you will find that some day you will pay the price when you need the ability to spurt or maintain a high batting average or need strength for that extra pep and punch when all those around you are weakening.
Life is a bigger game than football or basketball, but the same rules maintain. If you keep strong, physically fit, full of energy and enthusiasm, you are the man whom lifeâs coach is going to pick when the winning touchdown is needed. But if you do not follow the rules, if you become indifferent in the care of your physical strength, then the coach will yank you out of the game and put a more capable person in your place.
Health is the foundation for individual success. Health is one of the greatest assets industry looks for, and health is the foundation of a nationâs progress. In 1877, in one of his memorable statements, Disraeli declared that âthe health of the people is really the foundation upon which all their happiness and all their power as a state depend. It is quite possible for a kingdom to be inhabited by an able and active population; you may have successful manufacturers and you may have a productive agriculture; the arts may flourish, architecture may cover your land with temples and palaces, you may have even material powers to defend and support all these acquisitions, you may have arms of precision, fleets of warships, but if the population of the country is stationary or yearly diminishingâif, while it diminishes in number it diminishes also in stature, in strength, that country is doomed. The health of the people is, in my opinion, the first duty of a statesman.â
As I write this chapter the world is passing through an economic depression. Everybody is being called upon to bear extra burdens. There is a crisis in every nation, in every business, in every household. Woe to the nation or business or individual who has no health reserves! Nerves snap, tempers explode, bodies and minds give way under the strain unless they can call up physical reinforcements. How fortunate the nation, business or individual which has a sturdy constitution capable of shouldering the extra load without faltering.
When leaders command, bodies obey. âBody, what can you do with flabby muscles and faulty digestion? How can you arrive anywhere if you get tired and your energy peters out? That hollow chest and those drooping shoulders will never get you to the top of the ladder. About face! Muscles strong! Chest up! Head erect!â It is difficult at first, but soon the sheer joy of vigorous health amply rewards you for daring to be strong and well.
Sadly enough, it is oftentimes necessary for us to lose our health before we appreciate it. Youth, for instance, is a spendthrift of health and strength because there is such a surplus. It isnât taken seriously. But I am daring you crusaders to take health seriously. I have seen ambitious young men right on the threshold of a striking success crack because of ill health. Thatâs too heavy a price to pay for the privilege of being a spendthrift of health and energy. Why not stay on Mount Health? It is a laborious climb back after you have fallen down the side. Besides, a ride in the ambulance below isnât the most pleasant thing.
One of Technologyâs most prominent graduates, addressing a small group of students, talked almost solely on the necessity of safeguarding health. He stressed health so strongly, he said, because of his personal acquaintance with so many men whose success had been snatched away because of physical failure just when they were about to reap the reward of a long struggle.
Keeping fit is not a tedious job. Treating your body with the ordinary care you give your automobile or your dog is not a nuisance. Giving your body the stimulation of good, wholesome food is more fun than doping it with artificial stimulants. Again I challenge the scoffers who say that living right is not more thrilling than living wrong. You can keep yourself fit and enjoy doing it. Make it a game. Make it the hard thing to do not to eat right, not to take regular exercises, not to get the proper amount of sleep. You can play bridge until midnight, but not every night and feel rested in the morning. Keep caught up on your sleep. Anybody can ride every place in an automobile. My car is a convenience, but I walk my mile a day because I feel the better for it. Itâs my program.
My physical life has been a happy one. Why shouldnât it be happy? Good health makes happiness. My friends envy me because I have never lost a day at the office on account of illness. Yet the same friends think I am a faddist on health. And I am a faddist! It pays. Good health has been the most profitable, most enjoyable fad I know. Some faddists donât exercise and donât bother with regular hours. Personally, I would rather have my fad than theirs.
There is no secret to good health other than just plain, good common sense. You wouldnât let your automobile go along, week after week, month after month, without the proper mixture of oil and gas and overhauling. Why, under heaven, do you ex...
