N.S.DEVARAJ

E Learning Industry Experience – 4 years

Job Objective

Seek a challenging position in multimedia and graphics field with the state-of- art technology. Excel myself with the Latest Technology, towards the goal of organization and to enhance my skills.

Career Profile

Company	Designation	Period
Brainvisa Technologies, Pune	Sr. Programmer Analyst	Nov-2005 to Till date
Maximize Learning, Pune	Multimedia Programmer	Sep-2004 to Oct-2005
Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore.	Flash Programmer	Apr-2003 to Aug-2004

Projects Handled

Project # 1

Project - Object Oriented Course

Organization - Brainvisa, Pune

Team Size - 15

Software used - Flash MX, AS2.0.

Description - For the client Compass, the course was developed with Object oriented structure with XML Support. The course has a fully dynamic Module. Facilitate clients to modify the content as per requirements.

My Responsibilities - Created the template shell structure for Template compatible of Rapidel.

Project # 2

Project - Rapidel Template Course

Organization - Brainvisa, Pune

Team Size - 5

Software used - Flash MX, AS 1.0, Rapidel, Adobe Photoshop and Graphic Utilities

Description - Template Course for E Learning compatible with Rapidel, Along with XML Support. The Template course enables a user friendly interface and fully dynamic Module. Facilitate clients to create, edit and modify the content as per requirement of course.

My Responsibilities - Created the template shell structure for Template compatible of Rapidel.

Project # 3

Project - Protoype for Localization

Organization - Maximize Learning, Pune

Team Size - 10

Software used - Flash MX, AS 2.0, Adobe Photoshop and Graphic Utilities

Description - Prototype generation for E Learning Modules, Along with XML Support. The prototype provides a user friendly interface and fully dynamic Module. Facilitate clients to modify the content as per requirement changes.

My Responsibilities - Created the prototype shell for parsing the localization.

Project # 4

Project - PlayOK Game

Organization - Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore

Team Size - 15

Software used - Flash MX 2004, AS 1.0 and Graphic Utilities

Description - This is a Multi Player Online game, consists of seven games. They are Point game, Calculation game, Memory Game, Mah Jongg, Cat and Mouse, Tangram and World Travel game. Along with provision for users to chat while play.

My Responsibilities - Created prototype for Point game, used for the generation of levels.

Project # 5

Project - Bangla & Tamil Online

Organization - Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore

Team Size - 7

Software used - Flash MX 2004, AS 1.0, ASP and Graphic Utilities
Description - This Website contains the materials required to learn the Bangla language. It offer lessons and exercises and online tests, clearing the same would provide certification for Bangla and Tamil.

http://www.bangla-online.info/

http://www.tamil-online.org/

My Responsibilities - Created gaming and assessments with lot more options along with lot of templates.

Academic Profile

Ø MCA (Master of Computer Applications) from Bharathidasan University, Trichy, India in the year 2003 with 67%.

Ø B.Sc. Physics from St. Joseph’s College, Bharathidasan University in the year 2000 with 67%.

Technical Certifications

Ø Higher Diploma in Software Engineering, Aptech Computer Education with 68%.

Technical Skills

Operating systems	DOS, Windows XP and Linux.
Database management systems	MS Access, Foxpro.
Version control tools	VSS
Multimedia tools	Flash CS3, Flash MX, Flash MX 2004 and Flash Media Server 2.
Technical - Specific	Flash Actionscript 1.0, AS 3.0, HTML, Perl, JavaScript, VBScript, XML, Localization, AICC & SCORM Compliancy, Docent LMS, Black Board LMS, Audio Editing, ASP and Web Hosting.

Worked for (Clients)

Tyco, Motorola, Elsevier, Merck, DuPont, Ericsson, Moseley, AMEX, Cigna, Compass, Cisco, Fios and Manipal University.

Types of Project worked

Simulation-based Learning Objects, Product tool development, Story-based Learning Objects, LMS, Virtual Classroom, WBT, Internet-based, Object oriented course structure and Intranet-based.

Areas of Interest

• Multimedia projects using Flash MX Action scripting along with cross platform technologies.

• Projects related to Courseware, Games & Game-Based Learning.

• E Learning Modules of Object oriented course structure.

Personal Details

Date of Birth : 9th June1979

Marital Status : Single

Passport Number : E6580630 (Date of Expiry - 09.09.2013)

Languages Known : Tamil, English, Telugu, Hindi, Kannada and Marathi.

Correspondance Address : B-11, Chidanand Society

Sus Road, Pashan,

Pune, Maharastra

India - 411021.

Mobile : +91 9890696623

Email : nsdevaraj@gmail.com

Investor Gyan

With the markets sliding leaps and bounds, you need to keep your calm and find ways to cushion the free fall.   Reviewer's Note: The author (Max) son of a very wealthy Swiss citizen by name, Franz Heinrich, (whom Americans preferred to call Frank Henry), jotted down all the principles of speculation strategies, particularly in stocks, adopted by his father and his father's several other Swiss friends to make large fortunes on the Wall Street in USA in roaring Eighties. Principles perfected by these Swiss gentlemen have therefore been called "Zurich Axioms" by Max.
Enumerated below are twelve major principles and sixteen minor ones with brief comments:
First Major Axiom: On Risk “Worry is not a sickness but sign of health. If you are not worried, you are not risking enough.”Adventure is what makes life worth living. Every occupation has its aches and pains. The rich have to worry about their wealth. But, if there is a choice between remaining poor and worry-free, the selection is obvious. It is better to be wealthy and worried than to be worry-free and poor.
Minor Axiom I: “Always play for Meaningful Stakes.”If you invest Rs. 1000 and your investment doubles, you have only Rs. 2000 and are still poor! So if you want to be rich, you must increase your stakes.
Minor Axiom II:  “Resist the allure of diversification”. Firstly, diversification negates the earlier principle of playing for meaningful stakes. Secondly, it may keep you where you began so that your gains on few will cancel out the losses on the other few. Thirdly, it entails keeping track of many more items leading to confusion and occasional panic. Second Major Axiom: On Greed  “Always take your profit too soon.”Lay investors having made the investment tend to stay too long on it out of greed for higher profits. But, one must conquer this weakness and book profits soon. If one is less greedy for more profits one will take in more. Don't stretch your luck. In effect, it suggests, SELL sooner than later.
Minor Axiom III: "Decide in advance what gain you want from the venture, and when you get it, get out. Decide where the finish line is before you start the race".
This is self explanatory and hence needs no comment.
Third Major Axiom: On Hope “When the ship starts to sink, don't pray, jump”This axiom is about what to do when things go wrong. Learn how to accept a loss. One should accept small losses to protect oneself from big ones. When the market starts falling, sell, take your money and run!
Minor Axiom IV: "Accept small losses cheerfully as a fact of life." Expect to experience several smaller losses while awaiting a large gain.
Fourth Major Axiom: On Forecasts"Human behavior cannot be predicted. Distrust anyone who claims to know the future, however dimly." The story of a monkey throwing darts on the stock exchange page of a newspaper, to select the companies to buy, and coming out a winner is too well known to be recited. Recent news from London, further proves the truth, when an untrained chemist's stock selections, in a widely publicised contest open to all and sundry, registered higher appreciation over several full time highly qualified fund managers' well researched selections. Human events cannot be predicted by any method by anyone and, hence, don't trust anybody's predictions.
Fifth Major Axiom: On Patterns "Chaos is not dangerous until it begins to look orderly." The truth is that the world of money is a world of patternless disorder and utter chaos. This axiom is a commentary on Technical Analysis - a branch of investment strategies based on charts and patterns. The fact is, no formula that ignores own intuition's dominant role can ever be trusted.
Minor Axiom V: "Beware the Historian's Trap". This is based on the age old but entirely unwarranted belief that history repeats itself.
Minor Axiom VI: "Beware the Chartist's Illusion". Life is never a straight line. Let us not be hypnotised by a line on a chart.
Minor Axiom VII: "Beware the Co-relation and Causality Delusions." Don't be taken in by coincidences in the market.
Minor Axiom VIII: "Beware the Gambler's Fallacy." There is a gambling theory which suggests that one should put small stakes initially and test their luck, and if these turn out well one should go for big stakes on the dice table. But this is not correct. It only shows that winning streaks happen. But nothing is orderly about it. You can't know how long it will last or when it will strike. Sixth Major Axiom: On Mobility  "Stay away from putting down roots. They impede motion". You may feel socially comforting to have roots. But in financial life, roots can cost a lot of money. Have a flexible approach while investing. This axiom implies a state of mind.
Minor Axiom IX: "Do not become trapped in a souring venture because of sentiments like loyalty and nostalgia." Do not develop emotional attachment to your investment. You should feel free to sell when desired.
Minor Axiom X: "Never hesitate to abandon a venture if something more attractive comes into view." Never get attached to things, but only to people. Otherwise it hits your mobility. Never get rooted in an investment. You should remain footloose, ready to jump away from trouble or into a profitable opportunity as and when circumstances demand.
Seventh Major Axiom: On Intuition 'A hunch can be trusted if it can be explained.' A good hunch is something that you know but you don't know how to recognise it. When a hunch hits you, try to locate some data in your mind for any familiarity. Then only should you act on it.
Minor Axiom XI: 'Never confuse a hunch with a hope'. Be highly skeptical. Examine every hunch with extra care.
Eight Major Axiom: On Religion and The Occult'It is unlikely that god's plan for the universe includes making you rich'. You can't only pray that you should be made rich. You will have to work at becoming rich. Mere prayers will not suffice.
Minor Axiom XII: 'If Astrology worked, all astrologers would be rich.' This is self explanatory. Don't trust predictions.
Minor Axiom XIII: 'As superstition need not be exorcised, it can be enjoyed provided it is kept in its place.' In your day-to-day financial matters, act rationally. But, when buying a lottery ticket, give it a full play to amuse yourself.
Ninth Major Axiom: On Optimism and Pessimism 'Optimism means expecting the best, but confidence means knowing how you will handle the worst. Never make a move if you are merely optimistic.' In poker and a lot of other speculative worlds, things are never as bad as they seem - most of the times they are WORSE.
Confidence comes not from expecting the best but from knowing how you will handle the worst. Optimism can be treacherous because it makes you feel good.
Tenth Major Axiom: On Consensus 'Disregard the majority opinion. It is probably wrong'. It is likely that the Truth has been found out by a few rather than by many.
Minor Axiom XIV: 'Never follow speculative fads. Often, the best time to buy something is when nobody else wants it.' This is the best way to get a good stock cheaply.
Eleventh Major Axiom: On Stubbornness  'If it doesn't pay off the first time, forget it'. If at first you don't succeed, try and try again and you will succeed in the end. This is good advice for spiders and kings but not for ordinary persons with regard to financial matters. Every trial is a costly error.
Minor Axiom XV: 'Never try to save a bad investment by averaging down.' If the price of the stock goes down after your purchase don't buy more to bring down' the average cost of your total holding. Investigate why the price went down rather than put good money in a bad bargain.
Twelfth Major Axiom: On Planning 'Long-range plans engender the dangerous belief that the future is under control. It is important never to take your own long-range plans, or other people's seriously.' This is self explanatory and hence needs no comment.
Minor Axiom XVI:'Shun long-term investments.' If possible try to stay away fro long-term investments. The author noticed that the Swiss group never took a long-term view of their stock purchases. They always sold out as soon as their targeted profit was achieved.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The book, “How Buffet Does It”, is a step-by-step guidebook for investing like Buffet in any market environment. This book presents 24 ideas Buffet has followed from day one.

1. Choose Simplicity over Complexity
When investing, keep it simple. Do what’s easy and obvious.
 
If you don’t understand a business, don’t buy it.
 
2. Make Your Own Investment Decisions
Don’t listen to the brokers, the analysts, or the pundits. Figure it out for yourself.
 
Become a value investor. It’s proven to be a very rewarding technique over the long term.
 
3. Maintain Proper Temperament
Let other people overreact to the market.
 
To succeed in the market, you need only ordinary intelligence. But in addition, you need the kind of temperament to help you ride out the storms and stick to your long-term plans. If you can stay cool while those around you are panicking, you can surely prevail.
 
4. Be Patient
Think 10 years, rather than 10 minutes
 
Don’t dwell on the price of stocks. Instead, study the underlying business, its earnings capacity and its future. If the question is, “How long will you wait?” – “If we’re in the right place, we’ll wait indefinitely” says Buffet.
 
5. Buy Business, Not Stocks
Once you get into the right business, you can let everyone else worry about the stock market.
 
Business performance is the key to picking stocks. Study the long-term track record of any company that is on your buy list. Buffet looks for following five main things before investing in a company.
(i)             Business he can understand
(ii)           Companies with favorable long-term prospects
(iii)          Business operated by honest and competent people
(iv)          Businesses priced very attractively
(v)            Business with free cash flow
 
Don’t think about “stock in the short term.” Think about “business in the long term”.
 
6. Look for a Company that is a Franchise
Some businesses are “franchises”. Franchise generates free cash flows.
 
7. Buy Low-Tech, Not High-Tech
Successful investing is rarely a gee-whiz activity. It’s less often about rockets and lasers and more often about bricks, carpets, paint, shaving blades and insulation.
 
Do not be tempted by get-rich-quick deals involving relatively complex companies (e.g., high-tech companies). They are the most unpredictable in the long run. Look for the absence of change. Look for the business whose only change in the future will be doing more business, e.g Gillette Blades.
 
8. Concentrate Your Stock Investments
A the “Noah’s Ark” style of investing – that is, a little of this, a little of that. Better to have a smaller number of investments with more of your money in each.
 
Portfolio concentration – the opposite of diversification – also has the power to focus the mind. If you’re putting your eggs in only a few baskets, you’re far less likely to make investments on impulse or emotion.
 
9. Practice Inactivity, Not Hyperactivity
There are times when doing nothing is a sign of investing brilliance.
 
Be a decade’s trader, not a day trader.
 
10. Don’t Look at the Ticker
Tickers are all about prices. Investing is about a lot more than prices. It is about value. It is about wealth.
 
Abstain from looking at share prices every day. Study the playing field and not the scoreboard. Know the value of something rather than the price of everything.

11. View Market Downturns as Buying Opportunities
Market downturns aren’t body blows; they are buying opportunities.
 
Change your investing mind-set. Reprogram your thinking. Learn to like a sinking market because it presents great buying opportunity. Pounce when the three variables come together. When a strong business with an enduring competitive advantage, strong management, and a low stock price come onto your investment screen.
 
12. Don’t Swing at Every Pitch
What if you had to predict how every stock in the Standard & Poor’s (S&P) 500 would do over the next few years? In this scenario you have very poor chance of being correct. But if your job was to find only one stock among those 500 that would do well? In this revised scenario you have a good chance.
 
A few good investments are all that is needed.
 
13. Ignore the Macro; Focus on the Micro
The big things – the large trends that are external to the business – don’t matter. It’s the little things, the things that are business-specific, that count.
 
It’s possible to imagine a cataclysm so terrible that the markets would collapse and not bounce back. Externalities don’t matter – and you can’t predict them, anyway. And what can you do about them? Focus on what you can know: the workings of a good business.
 
14. Take a Close Look at Management
The analysis begins – and sometimes ends – with one key question: Who’s in charge here?
 
Assess the management team before you invest. A investing in any company that has a record of financial or accounting shenanigans, (creative accounting, accounting jugglery).  Weak accounting usually means weak business performance. Strong companies do not have to resort to tricks.
 
15. Remember, The Emperor Wears No Clothes on Wall Street
Wall Street is the only place where people go to in Rolls Royce to get advice from people who take the subway.
 
Ignore the charts. A value investor is not concerned with charts. Invest like Benjamin Graham. Graham told investors to “search for discrepancies between the value of a business and the price of small pieces of that business in the market.” This is the key to value investing, and it’s far more productive than getting dizzy studying hundreds of stock charts.
 
Offer documents of most mutual funds say – in small print – that past performance is no guarantee of future success.  Buffet says the same thing about the market: If history revealed the path to riches, librarians would be rich.
 
16. Practice Independent Thinking
When investing, you need to think independently
 
Make independent thinking one of your portfolio’s greatest assets. Being smart isn’t good enough, says Buffet. Lots of high-IQ people fall victim to the herd mentality. Independent thinking is one of Buffet’s greatest strengths. Make it one of your own.
 
17. Stay within Your Circle of Competence
Develop a zone of expertise, operative within that zone.
 
Write down the industries and businesses with which you feel most comfortable. Confine your investments to them.
 
18. Ignore Stock Market Forecasts
Short-term forecasts of stock or bond prices are useless. They tell you more about the forecaster than they tell you about the future. Take the time you would spend listening to forecasts and instead use it to analyze a business’s track record. Develop an investing strategy that does not depend on the overall movement of the market.
 
19. Understand “Mr. Market” and the “Margin of Safety”
What makes for a good investor? A good investor is one who combines good business judgment with an ability to ignore the wild swings of the marketplace. When the emotions start to swirl, remember Ben Graham’s “Mr. Market” concept, and look for a “margin of safety”.
 
Make sure that you also understand Buffet’s concepts of Mr. Market and the margin of safety. Like the Lord, the market helps those who help themselves. But, unlike God, the market doesn’t forgive those who “know not what they do”.
 
Bide your time, and wait for Mr. Market to get depressed and lower stock prices enough to provide a margin-of-safety buying opportunity.
 
20. Be Fearful when Others Are Greedy and Greedy When Others Are Fearful
You can safely predict that people will be greedy, fearful, or foolish. Trouble is you just can’t predict when or in what order.
 
Buy when people are selling and sell when people are buying.

21. Read, Read Some More, and Then Think
Mr. Warren Buffet spends something like six hours a day reading and an hour or two on the phone. The rest of the time, he thinks.
 
He therefore advises get in the habit of reading. The best thing to start is to read Buffett’s annual reports and letters. Finally, restrict your time only to things worth reading.

22. Use All Your Horsepower
How big is your engine, and how efficiently do you put it to work? Warren Buffett suggests that lots of people have “400 – horsepower engines” but only 100 horsepower of output. Smart people, in other words, often allow themselves to get distracted from the task at hand and act in irrational ways. The person who gets full output from a 200-horse-power engine, says Buffett, is a lot better off.
 
Make sure that you have the right role models. Strive for rational behaviour, good habits, and proper temperament. Write down the habits, practices and philosophies that you want to make your own. Then be sure to keep track of them and eventually own them. Financial success is a “matter of having the right habits”.
 
23. A the Costly Mistakes of Others
This is self explanatory and need no comments!
  
24. Become a Sound Investor
Buffet says that Ben Graham was about “sound investing”. He wasn’t about brilliant investing or fads and fashions, and the good thing about sound investing is that it can make you wealthy if you are in not too much of a hurry, and it never makes you poor.
 
To become a sound investor, you need to develop sound investing habits. Always fight the noise to get the real story. Always practice continuous improvement.

It's Upto You

Introduction

Dear reader, this simple booklet was first printed in 1918 and was actually taken from a book that was first printed in 1914. Both the book and the booklet are now hard to come by. Many thousands of copies of this small booklet were purchased by company directors and distributed to their employees.
     
You might wonder what, if anything you will be able to learn from reading this short book. What can a book that was written almost 100 years ago tell you that is useful in the modern world? The only way you are going to find out is by reading it because that is the only way that you can benefit.
This is a short book with a powerful message. You will not require long to read this work but it is a book that can have a profound effect upon the way you view the world.

Take the message of this book to heart, apply the message it contains and your life will change for the better. Whenever I face a challenge in my life that leaves me feeling as if this would be a good time to give up I take out this little book, find somewhere quiet and read it. I always feel better afterwards and ready to go on.

Prepare to have your mind opened, your view of the world changed and your life improved.


It's Up To You!

Shake the Jar!
I hold in my hand this glass jar containing little white beans and big black walnuts. I mix them all up. Then I shake the jar. They don't mix. The walnuts go to the top and the little beans go to the bottom.

This is no trick; I'll roll up my sleeves if you wish. Mix them up again. Now shake. Again the big ones go up and the little ones go down.

That always happens. You have seen it happening all your life, all around you, in a thousand different ways. But have you seen it?

Have you ever noticed how many times we have to see a thing before we see it?
Won't you try that? Get a jar, a box or a bucket and put into it pebbles, marbles, blocks or any different-sized things of about the same specific gravity. Throw them in any way, and then shake. Note how more perfectly than human hands can sort them, they will sort themselves just by the shaking. Each object finds its place according to its size. The littlest ones get on the bottom, the next larger a little higher, the next larger a little higher, and the largest will shake to the top.

When they shake into their place they stay there. Go on shaking, but they won't change -the biggest will stay on the top and the littlest on the bottom.


Help Me Up!

Suppose these objects in the jar could talk. Do you see that littlest bean in the bottom? I think if he could talk, he would say, "Help, Help! Help me up. Here I am in the bottom and so unfortunate and low down. I never had any chance like them big ones up at the top. Help me up!"

I say, "Yes, Little Bean, I'll help you. Cheer up and hold tight, for I am going to boost you." And you see I get him clear to the top. There, you see him up on the top. From bottom to top in four easy lessons by mail!

But the can shakes. Back to the bottom shakes Little Bean, right where he was before I boosted him. I hear him say, "King's ex! I slipped. You try that over again, put me back to the top and I'll stick there."

"All right, Little Bean, I'll put you back to the top. I'll write you some more testimonials." So I put him back on top. But he cannot stay on top. Notice, I shake the jar and he shakes right down to the bottom. I can put him up a thousand times, and he will shake right back to the bottom." Why?

You know why. I increase his altitude without increasing his dimensions, and he reduces to his lowest terms!



Put Him Down!

Then I hear Little Bean say, "Well, if I can't stay up, you make them big ones come down. Those Big Nuts haven’t any business up there higher than I am. It isn't fair. Put them down! Put us all down on a level and give us all the same chance."
So I say, "You Big Nuts, do you hear what Little Bean says? You have no business up there higher than he is. Go down to the bottom where he is." And I put all the big ones right down on the bottom.

But as I shake the jar, the Big Nuts all shake right back to the top. I can put them down a thousand times and they will shake right back to the top. Their size takes them up just as Little Bean's size takes him down.

There is only one way to change their place in the jar. Putting them up or putting them down has nothing to do with it. Change their size. If Big Nut gets smaller he will shake down; if Little Bean gets larger he will not have to say, "Help me up!" He will shake up.

Change their size and the shaking does the rest!


The Shaking Jar of Life

This little jar is a picture of what is going on everywhere in this world all the time. The world is just a big jar of life. All the people are in the jar getting jarred around all the time.

All kinds of people are in the jar of life - big people, little people, smart people, dull people, philosophers, fools - honest, dishonest, capable, incapable, industrious, lazy, enthusiastic, discouraged, jaded, cynical, selfish, and unselfish and a thousand other kinds.

The jar of life goes on shaking all the time. It never stops shaking. Every community is shaking. Every office, shop, store, school, church, household - every place where we live or work, is shaking.

The same law that shakes Little Bean down and Big Nut up in this jar is acting consciously or unconsciously upon every one of us in the jar of life. It is sending little people down and big people up. It is pushing every one of us to the place our size and shape determine.

The glory of our life is we are not helpless like the objects in this jar. They cannot change their size, but we can change our size.

As we change our size, we automatically change our place. No matter what place we have shaken into, if we get smaller, we'll rattle down to a smaller place. If we get bigger, we'll shake up to a bigger place.

When I say big and little, I do not mean children, I mean people who grow: and people who shrink.

I hear a good deal about destiny. Some people seem to think that destiny is like a railroad train, and if we do not get down to the depot in time, our train of destiny will run off and leave us, and we will have no destiny!

No! Here is destiny - this jar. If we are small, we will have a small destiny.
If we are great we will have a great destiny. We cannot dodge our destiny. And it is in our own hands!


Good Luck and Bad Luck

This little jar tells me so much about luck. You have noted that lucky people shake up and unlucky people shake down. That is, the lucky people become great and the unlucky people shrivel and rattle.

Notice as I put all the Little Beans up and all the Big Nuts down. I bump this jar just once. That one bump did two things; it bumped all the Little Beans down and all the Big Nuts up.

That same bump was both good luck and bad luck. It was good luck to the big ones and pushed them up. It was bad luck to the little ones and pushed them down. The same bump!

Ah! Don't you see, Little Bean, luck does not depend upon the bump, but upon the size of the bump-ee?
Don’t you see that if you will grow bigger, your luck will change? The same bumps that push you down will push you up!

GROW BIGGER!


We Cannot Change the Laws

Everybody wants to go up. But everybody is not willing to pay the price by first growing bigger so that he can shake higher. Every one wants to be boosted up. And if they get boosted higher than their size would take them anyhow, they rattle back! Nobody can fool the jar of life.
We must work with the laws of the jar of life. We cannot change the laws by any laws we write upon human statute books, any more than Xerxes could command the stormy sea by throwing fetters into it.

Everybody is doing one of three things: Holding his place, rattling down, or shaking up.


Bow to Hold Our Place

Whatever place we shake into, if we want to hold our place, we must hold our size. We must fill the place, for if we shrink up smaller than the place, we rattle. Nobody can stay long where he rattles. Nature abhors a rattler. He shakes down to a place where he does not rattle.

And you observe that in order to hold our size, we must keep on growing enough to supply the loss by evaporation. Evaporation is going on all the time, in lives as well as in liquids. A plum becomes a prune by evaporation. I wish human plums became as valuable when they become prunes.

Now life is becoming routine. You and I and everybody must go on doing about the same things day after day. But if we let it become a routine we are going to rattle. If we go round and round, thinking the same thoughts, doing just the same things the same way, just turning round and round in our places, we are going to wear smaller, evaporate, and rattle. The joy and juice will go out of our lives. We will shrivel and rattle. The very routine of life must flash a new attractiveness each day.

The farmer must be learning new things about farming each day to hold his place as a farmer. The merchant must be growing into a greater, better-informed merchant to hold his place among his competitors. The minister must be getting larger visions of the ministry as he goes back week after week into the same pulpit, to keep on filling it. The teacher must be seeing new possibilities in the same old schoolroom or the school will fossilize. The man in the shop must be growing or he will rattle.

You notice anybody who stays in the same place year after year is filling it.
He does not rattle.

Unless the place is a museum or a grave!


The Unlucky Ones

My heart aches for the rattlers, the loafers, the drifters, the butterflies of the bright lights, the people who merely have a "job" and go round day by day following their noses without trying to grow and develop themselves and their capabilities.

As the train of progress speeds on and they find themselves falling farther and farther back toward the caboose, they wail, "I never had any chance like other people. The world is against me."

The other day in a paper-mill I was standing beside a long machine making shiny super calendar paper. A man came along with an oil-can, squirting oil into the squirt-places along the side of the machine. I asked him some questions about the machine and he answered them fairly well.

I am a newspaperman, a walking interrogation-point, and I began to see the possibilities of a "story" here. So I asked him some more questions, about a process over in the next room. He replied, "I don't know anything about it, boss, I don't work there." I asked him about another process. "I don't know anything about it, I never worked there" I asked him about the pulp-mill. "I don't know anything about it, I never worked in there." I asked him about the office, how many people work in the plant. "I don't know anything about it, boss, I never worked in there". Nobody home! I asked him, "How long have you worked at this machine?" I hope I misunderstood him, but I think he said, "Twelve years."

Twelve years and "don't know nothing about" any more of the plant! I took off my hat in the presence of the dead! As I went out of the room I asked the foreman, "Do you see that man over there with the oil-can? Is he a human being or do you wind him up?"

The foreman's face clouded. "I hate to talk to you about that man. He is one of the kindest-hearted men in the plant, but we have got to 'can' him. He doesn't learn. He doesn't know as much today as he did yesterday. He didn't know as much yesterday as he did the day before. We're afraid he'll dry up, fall in the machine and break it!"

The foreman was worried about the machine!

And that man went out of that plant saying, "The world doesn't use me right. Here I've given the best years of my life to that company and now they heartlessly throw me out."

Nobody can stay where he rattles. It's to be grown or leave!

Jar the jar and see.


The Lucky Ones

So everywhere you look you see the jar of life sorting people according to size. Every big business concern can tell you stories like that of the Chicago house where a number of young ladies worked in the office. There came a raw, green girl from the country. It was her first office experience, and she got the bottom place.

She was so green and raw. She was the office joke. She believed everything they told her - and they told her a plenty! She made many blunders, but she did not make the same blunder twice. She learned the lesson from each bump.

And she never "got done." When she had finished her work, she could always see something else that ought to be done, and she would go on doing it. Go on doing it without being told! She had developed that rare faculty the world is bidding for - initiative.

The other girls got done. They had made a reputation in that office for getting done. When they had finished the work they had been put at, they would wait - O, so patiently they would wait - to be told what to do next.
Within three months every other girl in the office was asking questions of the office joke. She had learned more about the business in three months than the others had learned in their longer service there. Nothing got by her. She had grown to be the best posted, most capable worker there.
It is now time to shake this little jar!

It was not very long until she was made superintendent. She shook to the top. The other girls felt hurt about it. They had never seen this little glass jar. They said, "There was nothing fair about it at all, Jennie ought to have been made superintendent. Jennie had been here for four years."
But it wasn't an endurance contest at all! It was a matter of growing.


Give Everyone a Jar!

O, little jar, how you teach the truths of life! I am in favor of 100,000,000 of these jars distributed as Christmas presents over the United States.

I want one on the mantel, right where I can shake it every day and ask, "Ralph Parlette, are you growing some today, or are you rattling?"

I want one in every schoolroom so that the pupils can learn the laws of human specific gravity.

I want one in every business office so that any worker who says, "Why don't I get promoted?" may shake the jar and learn how we compel promotion. We grow bigger. We develop larger capabilities. We enlarge our usefulness. We increase our efficiency. We do more than we are paid to do. We overfill our place. And as we grow bigger, we shake up to bigger place!

We promote. Ourselves!
It's up to you and me!
Are we rising or rattling?


Don't Get Finished!

I am sorry when I hear somebody say, "Now don't try to tell me anything about that. I've been at this all my life, and what I don't know about it isn't-worth knowing." That man has quit growing and is generally rattling. The greater and wiser the man, the more anxious he is to be told and to learn.

I am sorry for the one who struts around saying, "I own the job. They can't get along without me!" I feel that they are already getting ready to get along without him. That kind of talk is rattling.

The good boss is always keeping his ears open for rattles in the machinery.
I am sorry for the youngster who goes to some place to "finish his education," for he is likely to come back finished with "outside finish." I remember in my old reader in school about the young lady who went away to a "finishing school," and she came back "finished." She admitted that she had been "finished." She said, "Isn't it wonderful to be 'finished!' And isn't it wonderful that one small head can contain it all!"
But over on the next page of my reader was the soliloquy of the philosopher who saw the truth and said what Sir Isaac Newton said after giving the world a new science, "I seem to have been only the child playing on the seashore," playing with a few pebbles, "while the great ocean of truth lay all unexplored before me."

I am sorry for the man, community or institution that spends much time pointing backward with pride, recounting how many years "established" or talking about in my day. For it is so often a symptom of rattle. The live one's my day is today and tomorrow. The dead one's is yesterday.

Our funeral is held right after we finish.

Go on growing up! And stay alive!




Life's Jar the Leveler

We could fill books with just such stories of how people have gone up and down. Did you ever notice two brothers start with the same chance and presently you noted one was going up and the other was going down? One grew and the other rattled.

Some of us begin life on the top of the jar, right in the sunshine of popular favor, in a big house and father's name in the "blue book." We belong to the exclusive set. Others of us begin down in the bottom, out of sight, and we do not even get invited. We often become discouraged as we look at the top layers, and we say, "O, if I only had his chance! If I were only up there I might amount to something. But I have no chance, I am too low down. "

We have exactly the same chance, top or bottom - the same chance to grow or rattle!

And as the jar of life goes shaking us year after year, the world does not ask us, "Were you born on the bottom or the top?" but "Are you big enough to fill this place without rattling?"


We Must Get Ready to Get

O, I wish they had shown me this little jar earlier in my life! I wasted so many years sympathizing with myself but not trying to grow.

I used to think the way to get up into a great place was just to get into it. Just get enough boosters, get enough testimonials and pull and friends in the firm to get pulled up into it.

I thought if I could once get into a great place I would be great. I would have been a great joke! I would have rattled. We do not become great by getting into a great place any more than a boy becomes a man by getting into his father's boots. He is in great boots, but he rattles. He must get greater feet before he gets greater boots. But he must get the feet before he gets the boots!

We first grow greater and the jar shakes us higher.

I am getting leery of the man with testimonials. I discover the man with the most testimonials generally needs them most, like excelsior, to deaden his rattle.

I am learning that the man who thinks permanent promotion comes from pull rather than from self-development, sooner or later rattles.
All life is preparation for a greater tomorrow. All education is a series of commencements, not end-ments.

Moses was eighty years getting ready to do forty years' work. The work was ready all this time, but Moses wasn't ready for it. It took Moses eighty years to get up steam, to get great enough to handle the work.

Jesus was thirty years getting ready to do three years' work.

But many of us expect to get ready in four easy lessons by mail.

We can be a pumpkin in one summer, with the accent on the punk.

We can be a mushroom in a day, with the accent on the mush.

But it takes years to become an oak. Keep on growing!


Fix the People, Not the Jar

I used to say, "Nobody uses me right. Nobody gives me a chance." But if chances had been snakes, I would have been bitten a hundred times a day. We need oculists, not opportunities.

I used to work on the section and get a dollar fifteen a day. I rattled there. I did not earn my dollar fifteen. I tried to see how little I could do and look like I was doing. I was doing - doing the railroad company out of a dollar fifteen a day. There was only one joyful moment in my work each day - when the whistle blew to quit. 0, joyful sound! I would come out of my trance. I would leave my pick hang right up in the air.

I wouldn't bring it down again for a soulless corporation.

I used to pass a bank on the way to the section-house. "Why don't they make me president of a bank, naturally bright as I am? I ought to be president of a bank instead of wearing my life away on section sixteen.”

I am so glad now they didn't make me president of a bank. They are glad, too! If they had put me up into such a great place, I would have lasted about fifteen minutes before I rattled out. I wasn't president of a dollar fifteen a day. I wasn't faithful over a few things; I would have rattled over many.
Remember the handcar job is just as honorable as the bank presidency. But I wasn't filling my handcar place, how could I fill a larger place?

I used to say, “Just wait till I get to Congress and I'll pass laws requiring the jar to turn upside down, so all us Little Beans will be on top and all the Big Nuts in the bottom."

But I had not seen that it wouldn't matter which end was the top or bottom, the Big Nuts would shake up, and the Little Beans would shake down.

For the jar will go right on shaking. We cannot fix the jar; we can only fix the people in the jar.

Have you ever noticed that the man who is not willing to fix himself is the one who wants the most laws passed to fix the jar?

He wants something for nothing! He can never get it.
But this blessed old jar of life is just waiting and anxious to shake everybody up to what everybody wants, just as fast as, everybody grows great enough.


Grow Greater Inside!

But remember that going up in life means so much more than merely going up in salary or getting more acres, autos, pigs or pennies.

Going up in life means growing greater in our life, and then the jar shakes us up higher. We may grow very great and go very high, and yet never get out of our kitchen or out of our shop. But we will take the kitchen or shop right up with us. We will make it a great kitchen or a great shop. Make it our throne-room.

We get great on the inside, not on the outside. Greatness is not measured in inches, dollars, acres, votes, hurrahs, or by any other of the world's yardsticks or barometers.

We go up from idleness to industry.
We go up from inefficiency to efficiency.
We go up from impurity to purity.
We go up from unhappiness to happiness.
We go up from weakness to strength.
We go up from low, ideals to high ideals.
We go up from selfishness to unselfishness.
We go up from foolishness to wisdom.
We go up from fear to faith.
We go up from ignorance to understanding.
We go up by our own growing. Nobody can do it for us.

Getting things is merely an indication of our, development as we get them for greater service, like a carpenter gets tools that he can become a greater carpenter. If we want to become a greater financier, perhaps we may have to get more dollars. If we want to become a greater farmer, perhaps we may have to get more acres. But we, who do not need great outfits of things to render great service, do not need a great lot of things to become great.

Getting to the top is the world's pet delusion. There is no top. Every top we reach is the bottom of the next ascension. Go on growing! "The sky is the limit!"

The Master said to the two disciples who wanted to be greatest, let him become the greatest servant.

I do not know who fitted the boards into the floor I stand upon. I do not know all the great people who may come and stand upon this floor. But I do know that the one who made the floor - and the one who sweeps it - is just as great as anybody in the world who may come and stand upon it, if each be doing his work with the same great love, faithfulness and capability.
The test of our greatness is not what we are doing, but how we are doing it.

Not what we are doing, but that it is the work we are best fitted to do. "Blessed is the man who hath found his work!"

The great people in every community are so busy serving that they have little time to strut and pose and get half toned for the Sunday papers. Few of them are prominent clubmen. You rarely find their names on, the society pages. They rarely give brilliant social functions. Their idle families attend to these things, while they have more joy in real service.


Help Him to Help Himself

Everybody wants to go up. But so few understand they must first grow greater and then they shake up.

The multitude wants to be lifted, uplifted, boosted, helped, and there is only one way to help anybody up without helping him to rattle, as you see by shaking the jar-help him to help him self.

That is why you cannot help many people. They will not co-operate by growing.

The old tramp out on the street says, "Help me! Help! Help me up!" He does not want to be helped; he wants to be propped. He wants me to put money in his hand or his hat. That is not helping him up, but helping him to rattle. That is professionalizing his helplessness.

Here is the failure of most of our "charity," most of our uplift campaigns and institutions. They help people to rattle. They uplift with a derrick. They boost somebody up faster than he can grow, and then run with the derrick to uplift, somebody else, and the first victim rattles back.

I confess to you that one of the hardest things for me to do in a city is to walk along the street past beggars, panhandlers and sympathy stunters, and be kind enough to them not to give them anything!

We must feed the hungry and cloth the naked, but save in emergencies, if we go no farther than that we have not helped them, we have pauperized them. I could write a book of confessions of how I have tried to uplift my fellow man with a derrick. I have taken scores of derelicts, have given them baths and new clothes, have filled their stomachs and cried on their necks. I have put money in their hands and bade them turn over a new leaf and set out to live a new life. And with tears in their eyes I have cruelly sent these rattlers out to rattle back, leaning upon the broken staff of their own weak will power.

O, it is a big job being patient enough to uplift - to stand by and encourage at each step, line upon line and precept upon precept, forgiving seventy times seventy.

This is all there is to civilization, to education, to applied Christianity – helping somebody to grow bigger, - that he may go higher.


The Tragedy of the Big House

The teachers in school will not do the work of the pupils, for they know they would be robbing their pupils. Their pupils must do their own work to get the development of greatness from the struggle.

I used to wonder why my teacher wouldn't solve my problems for me. He would overload me with work, and crush my young life out: "Why doesn't he solve these problems himself? He could do them in a minute, the old brute!" But I know now my teacher loved me too much to rob me that way.

I wish all parents were as wise as the teachers. In every community there are parents who have struggled and have become strong. But somehow they think their children can get it some other way. They think they can give it to their children!

I am very often the guest in a big mansion. They put me in the parlor, in the big, fat, Christmas gift chair. They show me the album and play Lucia Sextet on the phonograph. In olden time they used to uncan fruit, but now they uncan music. Then they bring in the offspring.

They say; "Here is our little Elizabeth and here is our little James. We have never had any opportunity in our lives. All our lives we have only known toil and sacrifice, but our children - ah, we are living for our precious children. We shall give them everything our money can buy. We shall secure them every advantage."

Buy it! Going to buy wisdom, understanding, and greatness? Going to make a great place in the jar of life and put their little children in it. After I hear about five minutes of that, I feel like saying, "Toll the bell for little Lizzie and little Jim! They are going to rattle. Father thinks he can go to New York or to Chicago or to Sears Roebuck, and get a bucketful or barrelful or perhaps lay a private pipe-line right up to the house and squirt it into them regularly until he gets them inflated."

Inflated is right. There is going to be a blowout after while. Little Lizzie and Jim are going to run on their "rims" after while.

All father and mother can do is to open the gate and say, Sic, 'em, Tige! Tige has got to get all he ever owns. What we own is not what we have in our pockets or in our heads, but what we have assimilated into our lives. All that we own we have earned ourselves. All that we own is what nobody gave us and nobody can take away from us.

Father and mother might as well say, "All our lives we have struggled with the keyboard to become pianists. All our lives we have had scales, and practice, and technique! Our children shall become greater pianists than we are, but they shall never know the horrors of the five-finger exercises."

Then little Lizzie and little Jimmie will never become pianists. They will become pianolas!

Most advantages are generally disadvantages. Giving a child a chance generally means getting out of its way. Many an orphan can really be grateful that he was jolted from his life-preserver and cruelly forced to sink or swim. Thus he learned to swim.

All colleges can give us is better tools. I know some hard knocks graduates who are liberally educated, who cannot write their own names. They are illiterate but not ignorant. They are wise and great and have gone high in the jar of life. They served with the old, crude, home made tools, the maul and wedge and the ox-cart. We go to school today to get better and more efficient tools. You can no more get an education out of a book than you can get to New York by reading a railroad guide.




Most Helping Is Hindering

I once read of a man who found a cocoon, the little chrysalis thing that is the intermediate stage between the caterpillar and the butterfly. He put it in his library, up between two books. He watched the little life developing inside.

One day he saw that the little butterfly was struggling inside the envelope that held it. It was trying to get out, but somehow could not free itself. It seemed to need help. He got a knife and helped it. He opened the envelope and set the struggling insect free. But out came a monstrosity, with under-developed wings and over-developed body. It fluttered a few feeble flutters and then died. He had killed it by helping it.

He learned afterwards that that struggle must go on until the butterfly has freed itself. It must wear out that envelope. That struggle is what develops its wings and reduces its body.

That law of life holds true everywhere. It is our own effort that develops us. Strength must come from struggle. It does not mean log cabins and poverty today, but it assuredly does mean that we must learn to stand on our own feet, bear our own burdens and solve our own problems.

Anybody who does for us regularly what we can do for ourselves, or anybody who gives us regularly what we can earn for ourselves, is robbing us of our birthright – our right to grow greater and go higher.


Make a Place to Put It!

And so the message of life to young and old is, Grow or go! Rise or rattle!

We want a great arm. We cannot buy a great arm and nobody can give us a great arm.

We must make our arm a great servant. The world knows that.
But the world does not know so well that to have a great mind, we must grow that, too. We must learn to think. Many a man who would feel degraded to be a physical loafer is a mental loafer. Go study the bills of the movies and the theatres, go look over the piles of loud-covered fodder on the news-stands. There are ten literary drunkards to one alcoholic drunkard. There are a hundred amusement drunkards to one booze slave and all just as hard to cure.

We have to have amusement as relaxation, but all relaxation and no contraction, physically, mentally or morally, spells degeneration. If we live to outshine our neighbors, we will become all outshine and no in-shine. If we fill our lives with amusement, we will go thru our lives as babies with new rattle-boxes and sugar-tits.

I can hire a hall in any city or town in the land and engage the greatest speakers in the land to come to it and speak. I can go out on the street and say to scores of kind hearted, whole-hearted people, "won't you come to the hall? Here is a free ticket to hear one of the great lecturers of the land."

I might as well say, "Smallpox," as lecture. They will say, "I don't want to go. I don't like lectures." They are perfectly honest about it. They have no place to put a lecture.

They are confessing they do not want to think. They want to follow their noses around thru life. And somebody generally leads the nose.

The menace of a republic is the man who will not think for himself, and learn to think straight as he learns to walk straight. The world can be made safe for democracy, but democracy will never be safe for the world until the mental rattler is saved from him self.

That is the trouble with poor old Russia. Her people have never learned to think.

Thousands of lives were sacrificed on the west front in the world war because Russia rattled on the east front.

And so it is morally. If we want a great character, we must grow it by great moral service. We have got to go with the Master into the Wilderness and overcome every temptation. Then the angels come and minister. Then we rise to the heavenly visions of real life! Thus we become great!



The First Step at Hand

Everybody's privilege and duty is to get promoted, to go up, and to become greater. And the joy of it is that the first step is right at hand. We do not have to go off to Chicago or New York, do not have to have a relative in the firm, nor go chasing around for testimonials and boosters.

The great stairway that leads up to infinite heights of success and happiness leads right from where our feet are now planted. We can rise with our next step.

We must take the first step now. Most of us want to take the hundredth step or the thousandth step now. We want to make some spectacular stride of a thousand steps at once. That is why we rattle and fall so, hard.

We must go right back to our old place - back into our kitchen, our workshop or our office and take the first step, solve the problem nearest at hand. We must make our old work luminous with a new devotion. We must develop greater efficiency, physically, mentally, morally. We must push out our skyline inch by inch. And as we rise to a higher vision, we will see the next step, and the next. As we solve and dissolve the difficulties and turn the burdens into blessings, we find love shining out of our lives.

As we rise to greater usefulness, as we solve our own problems, the world is drawn to us to solve its problems. We find our kitchen or workshop or office becoming a new throne of power. We find the world around us rising up to call us blessed.

As we grow greater our opportunities grow greater. We find they were waiting all these years for us to grow great enough to see them.

As we grow greater our troubles grow smaller, for we see them thru greater eyes and look down upon them from loftier peaks of vision.

And each day becomes a greater, happier day, for our horizon of life is widening as we rise.
Bless you, my reader friend! I bid you farewell and good speed, hoping, some day to have the joy of shaking your hand, and with the same words I first greeted you: It's Up to You! Are You Shaking Up or Rattling Down?