Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 190

fi-mfm 1 i I II. I I fc a i i 'j-l vu Harold Blake Walker Never Settle for Seconds i 1 1 1 Vl ill When Alexander the Great visited Diogenes and asked if he could do anything for the distinguished teacher, Diogenes reportedly said, "Just stand out of my light." Too often, I suspect, we block out our own light with doubts and fears that inhibit both our creativity and our courage. And in difficult times we are inclined even more to cling to old habits and stay in old ruts. Unhappily, when enthusiasm and drive are thwarted by the fear to risk failure, progress comes to a halt. Minds then seem to get bundled up in sweaters and creativity smothered in plastic.

Ideas that might be productive are put aside to await better times. New ventures are postponed in the hope that things somehow will get better. Things, however, will get better only when we are willing to "seize fate by the throat" and recover our drive and enthusiasm. It takes exceptional men and women to row against the tide of pessimism, fear, and uncertainty. But only those who are willing to make tough decisions and be forward-looking and venturesome will reap any future rewards.

Karl D. Bays, president of American Hospital Supply recently called attention to the slogan of his com- "pany's personnel policy: "Never Settle for Seconds." The company, he explained, must hire men and women who are creative, dynamic, and willing to accept responsibility and make hard decisions. Second-rate salesmen and managers won't do; only the best are good enough. These are the very qualities crucial to the vitality of our society: enthusiasm and judgment, eagerness to learn and willingness to accept responsibility. The problem of society is to cultivate such characteristics in people, to nurture talent and creativity adequate to sustain its vitality.

In our national life we-cannot afford to "settle for seconds." Long years ago I read a poem by Douglas Malloch that summarizes the spirit required by a vigorous and productive society: If you can't be a pine on the top of the hill, Be a scrub in the valley but be The best little scrub by the side of the. rill; Be a bush if you can't be a tree. If you can't be a highway, then just be a trail; If you can't be the sun, be a star; It isn't by size that you win or fail Be the best of whatever you are. In a recent discussion of American foreign policy, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger we have to convince Americans there never will be an end to exertion." Whatever truth that statement may hold in our country's foreign policy, it is decisively true for our individual selves. Our exertion must never end if we are to achieve the promise of our own lives and play worthy parts in the life of the nation.

Unfortunately, as Ben J. Wattenberg says, "The dominant rhetoric of our time is a rhetoric of failure, guilt, and crisis." This contrasts with the mood of Walt Whitman, who wrote in another time of trouble: "This year or some year the people will do some new things for America I wish the people believed in themselves as much as I believe in them." If our fears and failures have been standing in our light, inhibiting our exertions, making us willing to "settle for seconds," we have come to the time to believe in ourselves and recover our will to be the best of whatever we are. Then we can emerge from our time of trouble and begin to be what we can be. June 8, 1975 Mail and phone orders im filed! Call tbanfc 21-haur phone uerrire. or trrile Lytlonc i.ir, S.

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