Welcome to the Inspiration Living podcast, brought to you in part by Book of Zen,

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Today's podcast has been edited and adapted from If I Were 21 by Dr. Frank Crane, published in 1917.

I have climbed the hill of life, and am past the summit, I suppose,

and perhaps it may help those just venturing the first incline,

to know what I think I would do if I had to do it all over again.

I have lived an average life. I have had the same kind of follies, fears, and fires that most have had. I have failed often and bitterly.

I have loved and hated, lost in one, done some good deeds in many bad ones.

I have had some measure of success, and I have made about every kind of mistake there is to make.

In other words, I have lived a full, active, human life, and have got thus far safely along.

I am on the shady side of 50. As people grow older, they accumulate two kinds of spiritual

supplies, one a pile of doubts, questionings and mysteries, and the other a much smaller pile

of positive conclusions.

There is a great temptation to expound upon the former subjects,

for negative and critical statements have a seductive appearance of depth,

and much more of a flavor of wisdom than clear and succinct declarations.

But I will endeavor to resist this temptation and will set down as concisely as I can some of the positive convictions I have gained. The first duty of a human

being in this world is to take themselves off other people's backs.

I would go to work at something for which my fellow citizens would be willing to pay.

I would not wait for an ideal job. The only ideal job I've ever heard of was the one some other person had.

While it is quite important to find the best thing to do, it is much more important to find something to do.

For example, if I were a young artist, I would paint soap advertisements if that were all opportunity offered,

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