Perserverance, How to Develop It (Volume 8 of the Mental Efficiency Series)
By: H. Besser
Funk & Wagnalls, 1916

I found this dusty book on my grandparents' book shelf many years ago. It is one volume in a "Mental Efficiency" series, which also included titles on poise, character, timidity, influence, common sense, etc..

I guess this is what self-help books were like a century (and one decade) ago. There's not a lot of historical research here, let alone before any understanding whatsoever of attention deficient disorder. I mean this is not long after people still had to chop wood to keep warm. (Thoreau once pointed out that chopping your own wood warms you twice, but he was a bit of show-off).

The idea is perseverance is necessary to be successful in life, and this book itself reads like a real life lesson in perseverance, as if H. Besser just sat down at the typewriter and went to town reminiscing over everything they ever thought about how the idea of 'perseverance' worked (The book lists a translator, though leaves no clue as to the original language).

"The people who possess perseverance are the type that is able to keep walking steadily in the path that has been chosen, despite the pitfalls encountered on the way."

I never really thought of why having the fortitude that H. Besser describes would be necessary. A slim and already battered volume, I kept this book in my car and dipped into it whenever I had a moment.

It would remind me that if I wanted something, I had to work for it, and it would not be easy. The motivation would have to come from within.

"We must never allow ourselves to lose sight of the line of demarcation which separates healthy sentiments from the unreasoning impulses that are inimical to a perfect mental balance."

I get the feeling H. Besser got paid by the word.

H. Besser was sitting there in some office, in some mysterious country, typing away everything that came into their mind.

It is all pleasurable enough to read, and occasionally an epiphany pops up.

"Work that is frittered away gives one no joy and never bears any fruit," Besser wrote. "To be worth anything, the work of to-day must be joined to that of all the days that have gone before it, which will reinforce it and give it breadth and scope."

Besser looks at the many ways people get waylaid from their goals, including indecision, distractions, false modesty, and even enthusiasm,

"Now enthusiasm is the avowed enemy of opportunity in that it proceeds by fits and starts," Besser writes.

In the end, it was an enjoyable read, and helped reflect on the importance of maintaining a good discipline of stick-to-it-ness.

It rings true a century later, and, in fact, takes on greater importance in the age of doomscrolling.

Hopefully, I'll live long enough to work through the rest of the series. Persevere, man.