self in this profession what do you see yourself
doing?" we asked.

"Oh, everything wonderful," she replied. "I see myself driving my own
car--one of those cute little custom-made ones, you know--and wearing
the most stunning clothes and meeting all those big movie stars--and
living all the year round in California!"

"Is that all you ever see yourself doing?" we inquired.

"Yes--but isn't that enough?"

"All but one--the acting."

She then admitted that in the eight years she had been planning to enter
the movies she had never once really visualized herself acting, or
studying any part, or doing any work--nothing but rewards and
emoluments.

Pleasure or Pay?

_Self-Question 2_--_Knowing the requirements of this vocation--its
tasks, drudgeries, hours of work, concentration and kind of
activity--would I choose to follow them in preference to any other
kind of activity even if the income were the same?_

_Would I do these things for the =pleasure= of doing them and
not for the =pay=?_

If, in your heart, you can answer "Yes" to these questions, your problem
is settled; you will succeed in that vocation. For you will so enjoy
your work that it will be play. Being play, you will do it so happily
that you will get from it new strength each day.

Because you are doing what you were built to do, you will think of
countless improvements, inventions, ways of marketing them. This will
promote you over the others who are there only for the pay envelope; it
will raise your salary; it will eventually and inevitably take you to
the top.

A man we know aptly illustrates this point. He was a bookkeeper. He had
held the same position for twenty-three years and was getting $125 a
month. He had little leisure but used all he did have--evenings,
Saturday afternoons, Sundays and his ten-day vacations--making things.

In that time he had built furniture for his six-room house--every kind
of article for the kitchen, bathroom and porch. And into everything he
had put little improving touches such as are not manufactured in such
things.

We convinced him that his wife was not the only woman who would
appreciate these step-saving, work-reducing, leisure-giving
conveniences. He finally believed it enough to patent some of his
inventions, and today he is a rich man.

Of "Your Own Accord"

One more question will shed much light on the matter of your talents.
Here it is:

_Self-Question 3_--_Do I t