Success

If you want a thing bad enough
To go out and fight for it,
Work day and night for it,
Give up your time and your peace and your sleep for it

If only desire of it
Makes your arm strong enough
Never to tire of it,
Makes you hold all other things tawdry and cheap for it

If life seems all empty and useless without it
And all that you scheme and you dream is about it,

If gladly you'll sweat for it,
Fret for it,
Plan for it,
Lose all your terror of God or man for it,

If you'll simply go after that thing that you want.
With all your capacity,
Strength and sagacity,
Faith, hope and confidence, stern pertinacity,

If neither cold, poverty, famished and gaunt,
Nor sickness nor pain
Of body or brain
Can turn you away from the thing that you want,

If dogged and grim you besiege and beset it,
You'll get it!

Character

I was given a book with quotes, inspirational stories, etc. when I went on my mission in 1989. This is one that has always stuck with me.

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"Character," he said slowly, "is the ability to carry out a good resolution long after the mood in which it was made has left you."

He continued, "Now I didn't say just the ability to carry out a good resolution. We all have our moments of supreme dedication - whether it be fidelity to a person or loyalty to an ideal. But how few of us carry out that resolution when the mood has left us and the tides of temptation come sweeping in."

"Tomorrow morning you are going to have a test on the material we have covered over the past few days. Tonight you will perhaps decide that you are going to get up at six o'clock in the morning and study for this test. And actually you are going to get up in the morning - that is, tonight you are, because you are in the mood.

But tomorrow morning when you stick your foot out and it touches the cold floor, you don't have that mood any longer. I say character is that which causes you to exercise the self-discipline to get up anyway."

The bell had rung but none of us had heard it. We knew it must have rung because the room was invaded by the next class. Those five minutes have burned brightly for me over the years. I would not exchange them for an entire semester of my college career.

Since that time I've committed myself to a project many times while I was in an enthusiastic mood. I was swept along with a compulsion at the time. After the mood was gone the picture was different. The task seemed drab and difficult and without glamour or attraction. The price to pay seemed too high. On such occasions I have tried to remember this definition of character - that which we have within us to substitute for the mood after it is gone.

It is so easy to accept all parts of the ticket except the price. That is where real character and self-discipline enter the picture.