"In youth, physical and spiritual, there is a burning fire that demands action, yearns for heroism, and chafes at restraint: this is a time for watching, learning and absorbing these ideas inwardly. If allowed to burn uncontroled the fire will waste itself. It must be harnest and mastered to provide a lifelong energy source. What use is heat when you are warm enough?
"The time for action is when you no longer feel the urgency of it. Then, instead of responding to short-term need, you will have acquired the resolution to act out your convictions, and the longterm energy to effect lasting improvements. At these times, when other people’s brief head of steam has evaporated, you will need all the heat you have conserved to sustain your vision so that it (not you) may empower others.
"If you have invested the fire of youth in acquiring the inner certainty of such a vision the dividends it will pay are incalculable. If you waste your capital in emotional display, do not be surprised to attain poverty and disappointment.
"This is not to imply you should lack generosity. (Far from it, as you give so shall you receive — tho not necessarily in the same medium.) Every act of giving should be an occasion to examine your motivation and improve your judgment so that what you give and what you do carries maximum ‘investment’ value — investment in the advance of holistic values that bring a balanced advantage to as wide a spectrum of life as possible.
"If you invest in wisdom your return will be an internal validation that exceeds the bogus self-confidence of the monetarily rich: not being based on the outward display it can never be stolen or lost."
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