Evening Round Up | Page 2

like a barrel of water; you can draw water from the faucet at the bottom until you have almost exhausted the contents.
Nature mends ordinary nerve waste each day, like the rains replenish the cistern.
A reasonable use of your nerve force, like a reasonable use of the rainwater, means you can maintain a permanent supply.
But you must be reasonable; you must give the cistern a chance to refill and replace that which you have drawn out.
You, who have shattered and tattered your nerves, are not hopeless. You can come back, but it must be done by complete change of the acts that brought on the condition.
Get more sleep. Eliminate the useless, harmful fads, fancies and functions, which disturbed and prevented you from living a sane, rational life.
Avoid extremes, cultivate rhythm and regularity in your business and your home life. Keep away from excitement. Read really good books. Walk more, talk less.
Eat less heat-making foods and more apples. Follow the diet, exercise and thought rules suggested in "Pep."
Maybe these lines are being read by a discouraged one who is "all nerves," which means lost nerve force. To you I say there is hope and cheer and strength and courage if right here, now, you resolve to cut the action, habits and stunts that knocked you out and follow our suggestions.
I know, my friend, for I've trotted the heat, danced the measure, and been through the mill.
Now I am fearless, calm and prepared. I can stand any calamity, meet any issue, endure any sorrow.
I can do prodigious work in an emergency, go without rest or eating when required, because I have Pep, which means poise, efficiency--peace.
I realize nothing bad is as bad as it is painted. Nothing is as good as its boosters claim.
I go in the middle of the road, avoiding extremes. I have confidence in my heart, courage, hope, happiness, and content.
I've buried envy in a deep pit and covered it with quick lime.
I am keeping worry out by keeping faith, hope and cheer thoughts in my brain room, and these are antiseptics against the worry microbe.
I have my petty troubles and little make-believe worries, just enough of them to make me realize I have them licked, and to remind me I must not let up on my mastery of them.
Worry growls once in a while just to make me grab tighter the handle of my whip.
And you may enjoy this serene state, too. There is no secret about it. I will gladly give you the rules of the game in this book. Just prepare to receive some practical, helpful suggestions.

MAKING PLANS
How to Use Our Assets to Best Advantage
You are a busy person, so am I. Busy persons are the ones who do things. The architect is a busy man, but he has learned that the time spent in preparing his plans is the most valuable employment of his time. The plans enable him to do his work systematically and lay down rules and methods to get the highest efficiency and accomplishment from those who do the work of erecting the building.
If the architect would order lumber, stone and hardware, without system, and start to erect the building without carefully prepared plans, the building would lack symmetry and strength, and it would be most expensive.
The planning time therefor was time well spent.
Few persons have the ability to plan and conserve their talents so as to produce the highest efficiency. Men rush along thinking their busyness means business. Really it means double energy and extra moves to produce a given effect.
The elimination of unnecessary moves means operating along lines of least resistance, and any plan or method that will help to do away with unnecessary moves and make the necessary moves more potential will be received with welcome, I am sure.
With the object of conserving energy and strengthening your force, this book is written.
It shall not be a book of ultimate definiteness or a book of exact science. There is no definite or exact rule that will apply, without exceptions, to any science except mathematics.
But we shall learn many helpful truths, nevertheless, and if I err or disagree with your conclusions, just eliminate those lines and take the helps you find.
In my previous book, "Pep," I particularly emphasized the importance of taking a few minutes each evening and using the time for sizing up things, by inventory, analysis, speculation, comparison and hypothesis.
I have received many comments about that particular suggestion.
I find that many of the great captains of industry who are accomplishing things worth while, have learned the value of this daily habit.
Mr. E. C. Simmons, the president of the Simmons Hardware Company, has for about fifty years followed this daily sizing up plan. He takes fifteen to twenty minutes each evening in seclusion, with closed eyes, and finds the weaknesses of