My son, remember you have to work. Whether you handle pick or wheelbarrow or a set of books, digging ditches or editing a newspaper, ringing an auction bell or writing funny things, you must work. Don’t be afraid of killing yourself by overworking on the sunny side of thirty. Men die sometimes, but it is because they quit at nine p. m. and don’t go home until two a. m. It’s the intervals that kill, my son. The work gives you appetite for your meals; it lends solidity to your slumbers; it gives you a perfect appreciation of a holiday. There are young men who do not work, but the country is not proud of them. It does not even know their names; it only speaks of them as old So-and-So’s boys. Nobody likes them; the great, busy world doesn’t know they are here. So find out what you want to be and do. Take of your coat and make dust in the world. The busier you are, the less harm you are apt to get into, the sweeter will be your sleep, the brighter your holidays, and the better satisfied the whole world will be with you.
- Bob Burdette ©