by Elsie Lincoln Benedict
Available in 98 free installments
Owner:
¶ Never choose a vocation just because it looks profitable. It won't bring profits to you long unless you are built for it.
Never choose a vocation just because it looks easy. No work will be easy for you except that which Nature intended for you.
Never choose a vocation just because it permits the wearing of good clothes. You need more than a permit; you need ability.
Never choose a vocation just because the hours are short. You can't fool employers that way. They also know they are short, and pay you accordingly. The extra play these leisure hours give you will amount to nothing but loss to you ten years hence.
Never choose a vocation just because it is popular or sounds interesting.
"I am going to be a private secretary," said a young woman near us at the theater recently.
"What will you have to do?" asked her friend.
"Oh, I don't know," the girl answered, "but it sounds so fascinating, don't you think?"
Never turn your back on a profession just because it is old-fashioned, middle class or ordinary. If you have talents fitting you for such vocations you are lucky, for these are the ones for which there is the greatest demand. Demand is a big help. If you can add a new touch to such a one you are made.
¶ Never choose a vocation just because your friends are in it, nor refuse another just because your worst enemy is in it.
Two friends come to mind in this connection. One is a splendid woman we knew at college. She became a German teacher and up to the outbreak of the War had an instructorship in a western state university. The elimination of German lost her the position.
"Why did you ever choose German, anyhow, Ruth?" we asked her. "Your abilities lie in such a different direction."
"Because my favorite teacher in high school taught German," she replied.
¶ An opposite case is that of a friend of ours who has worked in an uncongenial profession for thirty years. "You were meant for engineering, Tom," we told him. "With all the leanings you had in that direction, how did it happen you didn't follow it?"
"Because the man who cheated my father out of all he had was an engineer!" he said.
Never choose a new vocation just because you are restless. You will be more so if you get into the wrong one.
¶ Never choose a vocation just because it promises social standing. The entree it gives will fail you unless you make good. And social standing isn't worth much anyhow. When you are in the work for which you were born you won't worry about social standing. It will come to you then whether you want it or not. And when it does you will care very little about it.
¶ Never take a certain job for life just because people are dependent upon you. Save enough to live one month without a job, preparing yourself meanwhile for an entering wedge into a vocation you do like. Then take a smaller-paying place if necessary to get started. If you really like the work you will do it so well you will promote yourself. You owe it to those who are dependent upon you to do this.
¶ Never do anything just to show you can. Don't let your versatility tempt you into following a number of lines of work for the purpose of demonstrating your ability. Versatility can be the greatest handicap of all; it tempts you to neglect intensive study, to flit, to become a "jack of all trades and master of none."
¶ There are but three general classes of work. They are:
WORK WITH PEOPLE;
WORK WITH THINGS;
WORK WITH IDEAS.
Each individual is fitted by nature to do one of these better than the others and there will be one class for which he has the least ability. In the other one of the three he might make a mediocre success. Every individual should find a vocation furnishing that one of these three kinds of work for which he has the greatest ability. Then he should go into the particular branch of that vocation which is best adapted to his personality, training, education, environment and experience.
