Welcome to the Inspirational Living podcast.

Today's podcast has been edited and adapted from the book Courage by Charles Wagner published in 1903.

These lines are not written for any particular class of people. I seek to speak of those things which are common to all, being

day by day more convinced that the nature of humanity is everywhere identical. However,

I have not been able to avoid thinking more especially of those whose morning is gloomy and whose

youth was hard. Gerta declares in his history of his life that what we desire in our youth,

we possess abundantly in our old age.

An astonishing saying, and one which seems inconsistent with truth.

But if we look at it more closely, such is not the case.

We do indeed apply ourselves with ardor to the pursuit of that which we desire, and whether

our ambition be noble or the reverse, it is seldom that we do not end by fulfilling

it, in part at least. Our life is eventually stamped by our ideal. No one therefore can watch the tendency

of their desires too carefully. What we most often lack in youth is the knowledge of what is wisest

to desire. To wish for vain things is to take a willow the wisp for our guide along the road.

How many of us have wandered in this way after these uncertain lanterns of light, which

promised happiness but led us into the swamps.

I should like to make you desire the things that are real,

that are worth being loved and acquired by stress and toil,

and among all these things there is nothing to be compared with force.

Force is itself a virtue.

And by virtue, I mean every power that excites in us an intenser life, in joy and hope.

Our everyday existence often has the effect of making us forget who we are. It smothers

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