A person may be tired and weary of backing up and beginning anew after going into dead-end ways, but this is inevitable, unless a person gives up trying. The only way that you can live at all is by the habit of making new starts, adjusting to mistakes and changes.

Age has its fears, joys and compensations, to be sure, but age is not to be feared. Age is to be with wisdom, in the spirit of youth and in the love of building a better and more prosperous world.

People of today seem afraid to advance into the future and experiment upon the new ideas that science has discovered in the past four years. Most of these people are very dissatisfied with today’s world. They deplore or resent what seems to be a faltering, stupid or selfish leadership on the part of our own country or of another country’s strife, injustice, self-seeking by governments groups annoy and discourage an individual. This “brave new-free world” for which we somehow seem to forget seems more organized in the darkest day of battle.

Each morning one awakens to the shock of some new incident of tragedy or mishap. The facts – as the late Texas City disaster – are continuously increasing despite the new safety devises. (April 16, 1947 – S.S. Grandcamp exploded in the Texas City port killing 500-600 people.)

People must advance with the times. No longer can they find their old prewar world, and they seem afraid to advance and go forward through “darkness”. The situation is difficult to accept. The fact that a new world order does not spring back automatically out of the destruction of the old causes some undying hope of finding a solution to a present day problem.

Slowly, however, through classes of ideas and will, choices will have to be made. Creation is a tedious process requiring determination and infinite patience.

Those, like ourselves, who live in such a period as today, must achieve their own shock absorbers if they are to continue to be at all satisfactory. This is a job that each individual must do for himself. One must accept the challenge of the future. People of today should feel it a privilege to be alive.

Look ahead! Life can scarcely be lived on any level without a glance into the future. Looking ahead gives you more understanding and enables a person to steer more certainly toward a predetermined goal, so to speak. Don’t stalk blindly. Look ahead and see how to carry yourself where you want to go without too much damage to yourself and other people.

The individual today should “wise-up”; “move-up”, and “grow-up.”

For more stories like this, see the Jan. 29 issue or subscribe online.

By Wayne Spraggins • This column was written in 1947 while the author was an Auburn University student