Analyzing Character | Page 8

results of our own experiences in this
field.
[Footnote 1: The Job, The Man, The Boss, by Katherine M.H.
Blackford, M.D., and Arthur Newcomb.]

PART ONE
ANALYZING CHARACTER IN VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE
Analyzing Character





CHAPTER I
CAUSES OF MISFITS
"Blessed is the man who has found his work."--Carlyle.
Only the rarest kind of soul has a clear call to his vocation. Still rarer is
he who, knowing his work, can create circumstances which will permit

him to do it. Of the thousands of young people who have sought us for
counsel, only a very small percentage have had even a vague idea of
what they are fitted to do, or even what they wished to do. Strange to
say, this lack of definite knowledge as to vocation holds true of those
who have just graduated from college or university. Many a college
graduate has said to us: "Why, I shall teach for a few years until I have
fully made up my mind just what I wish to do. Then I shall take my
post-graduate course in preparation for my life work." Even so late a
decision as this often proves unsatisfactory.
IGNORANCE AND PURPOSELESSNESS
The causes for uncertainty as to work are many and varied. And yet all
the many causes can be traced to two fundamental deficiencies in
human nature which are but poorly supplied in our traditional systems
of training and education. The first of these is, of course,
ignorance--ignorance of self, ignorance of work, ignorance on the part
of parents, teachers, and other advisors; ignorance on the part of
employers. As a race, we do not know human nature; we do not know
how to determine, in advance of actual, painful and costly experience,
the aptitudes of any individual. We blunder a good deal even in trying
to learn from experience. We do not know work; we do not know its
requirements, its conditions, its opportunities, its emoluments. And so,
in our ignorance, we go astray; we lead others astray. We neglect
important and vital factors in human success and happiness because we
do not know how important and how vital they are. Our ignorance of
their importance is due to our ignorance of human nature and of work.
A second cause for our uncertainty lies in the almost universal human
habit of purposelessness. Drifting, not steering, is the way of nearly all
lives. It is hard mental work to plan, to consider, to study, to analyze; in
short, to think. Someone has said that the average man would rather lie
down and die than to take the trouble really to think. It is easier to await
the knock of opportunity than to study her ways and then go out and
capture her. She treads paths which may be known. She has a schedule
which may be learned. She may thus be met as certainly as by
appointment. Those who await her knock at the door may be far from

where she passes.
We in America, especially, place altogether too high a value on our
ingeniousness, our resourcefulness. We therefore put off the evil day.
We say to ourselves: "There is plenty of time. I'll manage somehow or
other when the time comes for action." We are rather proud of our
ability to meet emergencies. So we do not plan and take precautions,
that emergencies may not arise. It is too easy to drift through school
and college, taking the traditional, conventional studies that others take,
following the lines of least resistance, electing "snap courses," going
with the crowd. It is too easy to take the attitude: "First I will get my
education and develop myself, and then I will know better what I am
fitted to do for a life work." And so we drift, driven by the winds of
circumstance, tossed about by the waves of tradition and custom.
Eventually, most men find they must be satisfied with "any port in a
storm." Sailors who select a port because they are driven to it have
scarcely one chance in a thousand of dropping anchor in the right one.
In our ignorance, we do not know how fatal to success and happiness is
this lack of purpose. We fail to impress it upon our youth. And, when
one demands chart and compass, we cannot supply them. No wonder
belief in luck, fate, stars, or a meddling, unreasonable Providence is
almost universal!
Ignorance and lack of definite purpose, the two prime causes of misfits,
have many different ways of bungling people into the wrong job and
keeping them there.
IMMATURE JUDGMENT
The first of these is immaturity of judgment on the part of young
people. There is a popular fallacy that the thing which a young man or a
young woman wants most