Personal Development

This great whirlpool of ceaseless motion has never been known to give UP any victim who was caught in its circling embrace of foaming water. No less sure of destruction are those unfortunate souls who are caught in the great maelstrom of life toward which all who do not understand the principle of organized, co-operative effort are traveling.

We are living in a world in which the law of the survival of the fittest is everywhere in evidence. Those who are fit are those who have power, and power is organized effort. Unfortunate is the person who either through ignorance, or because of egotism, imagines that he can sail this sea of life in the frail bark of independence.

Such a person will discover that there are maelstroms more dangerous than any mere whirlpool of unfriendly waters.

All natural laws and all of Nature's plans are based upon harmonious, co-operative effort, as all who have attained high places in the world have discovered. Wherever people are engaged in unfriendly combat, no matter what may be its nature, or its cause, one may observe the nearness of one of these maelstroms that awaits the combatants.

Success in life cannot be attained except through peaceful, harmonious, co-operative effort. Nor can success be attained singlehanded or independently. Even though a man live as a hermit in the wilderness, far from all signs of civilization, he is, nevertheless, dependent upon forces outside of himself for an existence.

The more he becomes a part of civilization the more dependent upon co-operative effort he becomes. Whether a man earns his living by days' work or from the interest on the fortune he has amassed, bee will earn it with less opposition through friendly co- operation with others.

Moreover, the man whose philosophy is based upon co-operation instead of competition will not only acquire the necessities and the luxuries of life with less effort, but he will enjoy an extra reward in happiness such as others will never feel.

Fortunes that are acquired through co-operative effort inflict no scars upon the hearts of their owners, which is more than can be said of fortunes that are acquired through conflict and competitive methods that border on extortion. The accumulation of material wealth, whether the object is that of bare existence or luxury, consumes most of the time that we put into this earthly struggle.