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