3. TRANSITORINESS OF CERTAIN INTERESTS
Since our interests are always connected with our activities it follows that many interests will have their birth, grow to full strength, and then fade away as the corresponding instincts which are responsible for the activities pass through these same stages. This only means that interest in play develops at the time when the play activities are seeking expression; that interest in the opposite sex becomes strong when instinctive tendencies are directing the attention to the choice of a mate; and that interest in abstract studies comes when the development of the brain enables us to carry on logical trains of thought. All of us can recall many interests which were once strong, and are now weak or else have altogether passed away. Hide-and-seek, Pussy-wants-a-corner, excursions to the little fishing pond, securing the colored chromo at school, the care of pets, reading blood-and-thunder stories or sentimental ones—interest in these things belongs to our past, or has left but a faint shadow. Other interests have come, and these in turn will also disappear and other new ones yet appear as long as we keep on acquiring new experience.
Interests Must Be Utilized When They Appear.—This means that we must take advantage of interests when they appear if we wish to utilize and develop them. How many people there are who at one time felt an interest impelling them to cultivate their taste for music, art, or literature and said they would do this at some convenient season, and finally found themselves without a taste for these things! How many of us have felt an interest in some benevolent work, but at last discovered that our inclination had died before we found time to help the cause! How many of us, young as we are, do not at this moment lament the passing of some interest from our lives, or are now watching the dying of some interest which we had fondly supposed was as stable as Gibraltar? The drawings of every interest which appeals to us is a voice crying, "Now is the appointed time!" What impulse urges us today to become or to do, we must begin at once to be or perform, if we would attain to the coveted end.
The Value of a Strong Interest.—Nor are we to look upon these transitory interests as useless. They come to us not only as a race heritage, but they impel us to activities which are immediately useful, or else prepare us for the later battles of life. But even aside from this important fact it is worth everything just to be interested. For it is only through the impulsion of interest that we first learn to put forth effort in any true sense of the word, and interest furnishes the final foundation upon which volition rests. Without interest the greatest powers may slumber in us unawakened, and abilities capable of the highest attainment rest satisfied with commonplace mediocrity. No one will ever know how many Gladstones and Leibnitzes the world has lost simply because their interests were never appealed to in such a way as to start them on the road to achievement. It matters less what the interest be, so it be not bad, than that there shall be some great interest to compel endeavor, test the strength of endurance, and lead to habits of achievement.
