In the spring of 1871, a young man picked up a book and read twenty-one words that had a profound effect on his future.These twenty-one words helped him to become the most famous physician of his generation. He organised the world-famous John Hopkins School of Medicine. He became Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford - the highest honour that can be bestowed upon any medical man in the British Empire. He was knighted by the King of England .
His name was Sir William Osier. Here are the twenty-one words that he read in the spring of 1871 - twenty-one words from Thomas Carlyle that helped him lead a life free from worry :
His name was Sir William Osier. Here are the twenty-one words that he read in the spring of 1871 - twenty-one words from Thomas Carlyle that helped him lead a life free from worry :
"Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand."
Four-two years later, on a soft spring night when the tulips were blooming on the campus, this man, Sir William Osier, addressed the students of Yale University. He told those Yale students that a man like himself who had been a professor in four universities and had written a popular book was supposed to have "brains of a special quality". He declared that, that was untrue. He said that his intimate friends knew that his brains were "of the most mediocre character".
What , then, was the secret of his success? He stated that it was owing to what he called living in "day-tight compartments." What did he mean by that ? A few months before he spoke at Yale, Sir William Osier had crossed the Atlantic on a great ocean liner where the captain standing on the bridge, could press a button and - presto! - there was a clanging of machinery and various parts of the ship were immediately shut off from one another - shut off into watertight compartments.
"Now each one of you," Dr. Osier said to those Yale students, "is a much more marvelous organisation that the great liner, and bound on a longer voyage. When I urge is that you so learn to control the machinery to live with "day-tight compartments" as the most certain way to ensure safety on the voyage. Get on the bridge, and see that at least the great bulkheads are in the working order. Touch a button and hear, at every level of your life, the iron doors shutting out the Past - the dead yesterdays. Touch another and shut off, with a mental curtain the Future - the unborn tomorrows. Then you are safe - safe for today!....Shut off the past. Let the dead past bury its dead......Shut out the yesterdays which have lighted fools the way to dusty death. ...The load of tomorrow, added to that of yesterday, carried today, makes the strongest falter. Shut off the future as tightly as past. .....The future is today. ....There is no tomorrow . The day of main's salvation is now. Waste of energy, mental distress, nervous worries dog the steps of a man who is anxious about the future. ......Shut close, then the great fore and aft bulkheads, and prepare to cultivate the habit of life of 'day-tight compartments'."
Did Dr. Osier mean to say that we should not make any effort to prepare for tomorrow? No. Not at all. but he did go on in that address to say that the best possible way to prepare for tomorrow is to concentrate with all your intelligence, all your enthusiasm, on doing today's work superbly todays. That is the only possible way you can prepare for the future.
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