By Brendan McKeogh

The term “Use it or Lose it” sounds trite today. But there is real power in those few words – if you look below the surface. The phrase was first used in “Pushing to the Front”, published in 1894.

First, this book reassures of nature’s almost unlimited capacity to provide for our needs. The writer then goes on encourage us to consciously choose what we want our life’s work to be. He points out the vast resources we have at our disposal to achieve our aims. (Of course, we have so much more today than anyone enjoyed back in 1894!) We are then warned converting these resources into the results we desire will take real effort. Even after we have made some headway, we cannot expect the momentum to be maintained without some ongoing energy – nothing, the author reminds us, remains static. Let me share a passage from Pushing to the Front with you:

“Everything in nature is on the move, either one way or the other. It is either going up or down. It is either advancing or retrograding; we cannot hold without using. Nature withdraws muscle or brain if we do not use them. She withdraws skill the moment we stop drilling efficiently, the moment we stop using our power. The force is withdrawn when we cease exercising it. Nature is liberal with us if we utilize what she gives us, but if we stop using it, if we do not transform what she gives us into power, if we do not do some building somewhere, if we do not transform the material which she gives us into force and utilize that force, we not only find the supply cut off, but we find that we are growing weaker, less efficient.

A college graduate is often surprised years after he leaves the college to find that about all he has to show for his education is his diploma. The power, the efficiency which he gained there, has been lost because he has not been using them. He thought at the time that everything was still fresh in his mind after his examination that this knowledge would remain with him, but it has been slipping away from him every minute since he stopped using it, and only that has remained and increased which he has used; the rest has evaporated. A great many college graduates ten years afterwards find that they have but very little left to show for their four years’ course, because they have not utilized their knowledge. They have become weaklings without knowing it. They constantly say to themselves, “I have a college education, I must have some ability, I must amount to something in the world.” But the college diploma has no more power to hold the knowledge you have gained in college than a piece of tissue paper over a gas jet can hold the gas in the pipe. Everything which you do not use is constantly slipping away from you. Use it or lose it. The secret of power is use. Ability will not remain with us, force will evaporate the moment we cease to do something with it.”

Again, in the author’s own words “The tools for self-improvement are at your hand, use them.” and “Progress may seem slow at first, but perseverance assures success.”

Over a century after the words, “use it or lose it” were first published, the saying is as true as ever. This key to success should serve as both an encouragement and a warning to anyone attempting to build a better future for themselves.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.