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Note 015: Keys to success

Another week, another series of massive wins and difficult challenges.

I came across this essay by B.C Forbes today, written in 1917(!), and is as true now as it was then.

In light of being super busy with our own deadlines (and working on my super-secret student and graduates guide to getting your first architectural job with the end of semester around the corner): I thought Id share it here - in Berties own words…

Keys to Success

B.C Forbes, 1917

Your success depends on you.

Your happiness depends on you.

You have to steer your own course.

You have to shape your own fortune.

You have to educate yourself.

You have to do your own thinking.

You have to live with your own conscience.

Your mind is yours and can be used only by you.

You come into this world alone.

You go to the grave alone.

You are alone with your inner thoughts during the journey between.

You make your own decisions.

You must abide by the consequences of your acts.

You alone can regulate your habits and make or unmake your health.

You alone can assimilate things mental and things material.

You have to do your own assimilation all through life.

You can be taught by a teacher, but you have to imbibe the knowledge.

He cannot transfuse it into your brain.

You alone can control your mind cells and your brain cells.

You may have spread before you the wisdom of the ages, but unless you assimilate it you derive no benefit from it; no one can force it into your cranium.

You alone can move your own legs.

You alone can move your own arms.

You alone can utilize your own hands.

You alone can control your own muscles.

You must stand on your feet, physically and metaphorically.

You must take your own steps.

Your parents cannot enter into your skin, take control of your mental and physical machinery, and make something of you.

You cannot fight your son’s battles; that he must do for himself.

You have to be captain of your own destiny.

You have to see through your own eyes.

You have to use your own ears.

You have to master your own faculties.

You have to solve your own problems.

You have to form your own ideals.

You have to create your own ideas.

You must choose your own speech.

You must govern your own tongue.

Your real life is your thoughts.

Your thoughts are your own making.

Your character is your own handiwork.

You alone can select the materials that go into it.

You alone can reject what is not fit to go into it.

You are the creator of your own personality.

You can be disgraced by no man’s hand but your own.

You can be elevated and sustained by no man but yourself.

You have to write your own record.

You have to build your own monument—or dig your own pit.

Which are you doing?

Note 015 done and dusted! Please give me any feedback whatsoever, I would love to hear from you - after all, this is for you :)

PS - if you have a friend, colleague, or archi-buddy that you think would benefit from Andrew’s Notes, please feel free to send this to them or share with the button below: - lets grow this tribe :)