A DEFINITE CHIEF AIM 163The Definite Purpose and Finance
So much for the psychological viewpoint of a difinite purpose. Let us now
look at its economic side.
If a ship lost its rudder in mid-ocean and began circling around, it
would soon exhaust its fuel supply without reaching shore, despite that
it would use up enough energy to carry it to shore and back several times.
The person who labors without a difinite purpose backed by a definite
plan for its attainment resembles the ship that has lost its rudder. Hard
labor and good intentions are not sufficient to carry anyone through to
success, for how may any of us be sure that we have attained success
unless a definite desired objective had been established in our minds?
Every well-built house started in the form of a difinite purpose plus
a definite plan in the nature of a set of blueprints. Imagine what would
happen if one tried to build a house by the haphazard method, without
plans. Workmen would be in each other's way, building materials would
be piled all over the lot before the foundation was even completed, and
everybody on the job would have a different notion as to how the house
ought to be built. Result: chaos and misunderstandings, and costs that
would be prohibitive.
Yet have you ever stopped to think that most people finish school,
take up employment or enter a trade or profession, without the slightest
concept of anything that even remotely resembles a difinite purpose or a
definite plan? In view of the fact that science has provided reasonably
accurate ways and means of analyzing character and determining the
work for which people are best fitted, does it not seem a modern tragedy
that 95 percent of the adult population of the world is made up of men
and women who are failures because they have not found their proper
niches in the world's work?
If success depends upon power, and if power is organized iffort, and if
the first step in the direction of organization is a difinite purpose, then one
may easily see why such a purpose is essential.