Keeping Fit All the Way | Page 4

up the youth of the
coming race in a way hitherto unthought of. It is safe to say that the
next decade will see our youth, and men up to the age of forty, in far
better physical condition than is the case to-day.
THE PRICE OF SUCCESS
The men of this country, with their forcefulness and their ambition,
their stern desire to succeed quickly and to work furiously if necessary
to obtain that success, are apt to forget that Nature meant man to earn
his bread by the sweat of his brow; and that just so far as he departs
from this primal method of supporting himself and his family he must
pay toll. Almost before he realizes it the American youth is a staid man
of business. Only yesterday he was a boy at play, and to-day he finds
himself known by his first name or nickname only to a few old
classmates whom he sees at his college reunions. He is Judge This or
Honorable That. He has had no time to realize that somewhere he has
lost fifteen or twenty years in this wild rush for fortune and fame. Now
in some hour of enforced reflection during a temporary illness he
begins to count the cost, to think how little he has in common with that
growing boy of his. But still he does no more than wish that he might
have more time for play and could see his way to longer and less
interrupted vacations. Perhaps on his next period of relaxation he
plunges into an orgy of physical exercise--plays to the point of
exhaustion--enjoys it, too, and sleeps like a log. Oh, this is the life once
more!
When he returns to town he determines to take more time for exercise;
he will keep up his tennis or golf. But once back at work, he must make
up for lost time. He returns with an improved appetite and he indulges
it. Soon his vacation benefits have worn off, together with his vacation
tan. The muscles slacken again, the waist-line increases. He feels a
little remorse over the way he has broken his good resolutions, but of
course he cannot neglect his business. Then, after a hard week,
followed by some carelessness or exposure, he thinks that he has the
grip or a cold. He is lucky if he stays at home and calls in his physician.

He does not pick up. Now, for the first time, he hears from the doctor
words that he has caught occasionally about men far older than
himself--"blood pressure." But he he is under fifty! The doctor says he
must go slower. Now begins a dreary round indeed! He has never
learned to go slow! He is an old man at fifty. If lucky, he has made
money. But what is the price? He has found precious little fun in those
fifteen or twenty years since he was a boy. Of course he has had his
high living, his motor, his late hours. His cigars have been good, but he
has never enjoyed them so much as he did the old pipe at camp. His
dinners and late suppers can't compare with the fish and bacon of the
woods.
What a fool he has been!
Perhaps he has caught himself in time. If so he is in luck and Nature
may partially forgive him and give him a chance to "come back." He is
well scared and he means to be good. But the scare wears off, and then,
too, "business" presses him on again. And finally, still well this side of
sixty, perhaps, Nature taps him on the shoulder and says, "Stop!"
"But," he pleads, "I'll be good!"
"You are in the way," she replies, "and the sooner you make place for
wiser men the better I shall have my work done."
But it is not alone the business world that is full of these untimely
breakdowns. We lose many a man in the professional ranks with ten
years of his best work before him, the man of ripened intellect, with his
store of reading and experience--stopped oftentimes in the very midst
of that masterpiece whose volumes would be read by future
generations.
Executives whose value to corporations is increasing in a compound
degree suddenly receive notice that the continually bent bow is
cracking; almost immediately they lose their ambition and initiative,
they become prematurely aged. These are indeed expensive losses!
And all this could be saved at an expenditure of a few paltry hours a

week devoted to the repair of the physical man; given that and we may
safely promise that he shall round out the full measure of his mental
labors.
The men of this country are going the pace at a far more reckless rate