The World-As We Find It
“You must remember that this world is pretty much made already,” said a wise elderly friend who was just starting to find his place in life. “Success consists in adjustments. Don’t try to make your own world, adjust yourself to the world you find. Serve it till you can master it.”
One who goes about seeking for a perfect condition has started on a long search1. The place that exactly and perfectly suits one is only a place of dreams, similarly, that position that has no drawbacks has not yet been created. Whoever waits until he can work with perfect toil will never work at all. Success lies in adaptation, in making the best of what we have where we are and/or find ourselves. The world needs improvement assuredly, but it must be worked out from within, not waiting for from without. Taking the world as we find it does not mean indifference to evil, or being satisfied with imperfection-it means putting forth our best effort to find our place of service in the world.
Footnotes
- Thoughts on making an impact within a fallen world. The rationale in part is that to be the salt of the earth we would necessarily need to interact with the earth. ↩︎
