(Webmaster's Notes: The following book is published for entertainment only. Although I am quite in agreement with many, but not all, of Mr. Camp's attitudes towards fitness and health, he wrote in the earliest part of the 20th century and much has been learned since then. While I applaud his attitude toward physical fitness, exercise, and health, many of his "facts" have since been proven wrong, or at least not fully understood. I may make the occasional common along the way, generally in parentheses and prefaced by WN, for Webmaster's Notes.

I hope you enjoy the book, but check up on the latest facts before following through on the exercise and fitness tips contained within. By the way, the original book had quite a few illustrations, and you may see references here or there to them. However, I have omitted them on this website.

Donovan Baldwin January 2024)

THE PRICE OF SUCCESS

The men of this country, with their forcefulness and their ambition, their stern desire to succeed quickly and to work furiously if necessary to obtain that success, are apt to forget that Nature meant man to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow; and that just so far as he departs from this primal method of supporting himself and his family, he must pay the toll. Almost before he realizes it the American youth is a staid man of business. Only yesterday he was a boy at play, and today he finds himself known by his first name or nickname only to a few old classmates whom he saw at his college reunions. He is Judge This or Honorable That. He has had no time to realize that somewhere he has lost fifteen or twenty years in this wild rush for fortune and fame. Now in some hour of enforced reflection during a temporary illness he begins to count the cost, to think how little he has in common with that growing boy of his. But still, he does no more than wish that he might have more time for play and could see his way to longer and less interrupted vacations. Perhaps on his next period of relaxation, he plunges into an orgy of physical exercise--plays to the point of exhaustion--enjoys it, too, and sleeps like a log. Oh, this is the life once more!

When he returns to town he determines to take more time for exercise; he will keep up his tennis or golf. But once back at work, he must make up for lost time. He returns with an improved appetite and he indulges it. Soon his vacation benefits have worn off, together with his vacation tan. The muscles slacken again, and the waistline increases. He feels a little remorse over the way he has broken his good resolutions, but of course he cannot neglect his business. Then, after a hard week, followed by some carelessness or exposure, he thinks that he has a grippe or a cold. He is lucky if he stays at home and calls in his physician. He does not pick up. Now, for the first time, he hears from the doctor words that he has caught occasionally about men far older than himself--"blood pressure." But he he is under fifty! The doctor says he must go slower. Now begins a dreary round indeed! He has never learned to go slow! He is an old man at fifty. If lucky, he has made money. But what is the price? He has found precious little fun in those fifteen or twenty years since he was a boy. Of course, he has had his high living, his motor, his late hours. His cigars have been good, but he has never enjoyed them so much as he did the old pipe at camp. His dinners and late suppers can't compare with the fish and bacon of the woods.

What a fool he has been!

Perhaps he has caught himself in time. If so he is in luck and Nature may partially forgive him and give him a chance to "come back." He is scared and he means to be good. But the scare wears off, and then, too, "business" presses him on again. And finally, still well this side of sixty, perhaps, Nature taps him on the shoulder and says, "Stop!"

"But," he pleads, "I'll be good!"

"You are in the way," she replies, "and the sooner you make a place for
wiser men the better I shall have my work done."

But it is not alone the business world that is full of these untimely
breakdowns. We lose many a man in the professional ranks with ten years
of his best work before him, the man of ripened intellect, with his
store of reading and experience--stopped oftentimes in the very midst of
that masterpiece whose volumes would be read by future generations.

Executives whose value to corporations is increasing in a compound
degree suddenly receive notice that the continually bent bow is
cracking; almost immediately they lose their ambition and initiative,
they become prematurely aged. These are indeed expensive losses!

And all this could be saved at an expenditure of a few paltry hours a
week devoted to the repair of the physical man; given that we may
safely promise that he shall round out the full measure of his mental
labors.

The men of this country are going the pace at a far more reckless rate
than that of any other nation. Philosophers like Prof. Irving Fisher are
sounding the warning. Shall we heed it?        

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Web Page Copyright 2024 by Donovan Baldwin
Keeping Fit All the Way Part I Chapter I The Price of Success
Page edited 7:35 PM Wednesday, January 3, 2024