"It’s so cold out here," said a Camel to an Arab sitting in his tent one cold night in the desert. "May I not put my head inside?" The Arab assented and the Camel put his head in.

"Perhaps you will kindly allow me to put my neck in for it is shivering with cold." "Certainly," said the Arab, and the animal advanced until his long neck was in the warm tent.

"I’d be more comfortable if I could put my fore feet in," said the Camel, and the Arab moved to one side, for the tent was small.

"I might just as well come in entirely," said the Camel and he moved in. But the tent was too small for both, so the Arab had to go outside.

-Aesop

Everything depends upon the attitude of mind with which you approach a difficulty. If you are cowed before you begin, if you start out with an admission of weakness, a tacit acknowledgement of your inability to meet the emergency that confronts you, you are foredoomed to failure. Your whole attitude lacks the magnetism that attracts success.

-Orisen Swett Marden, Selling Things, 1916

How often we wish for another chance
 to make a fresh beginning.
A chance to blot out our mistakes
 and change failure into winning.
 

It does not take a new day
 to make a brand new start,
It only takes a deep desire
 to try with all our heart.
 

To live a little better
 and to always be forgiving
And to add a little sunshine
 to the world in which we’re living.
 

So never give up in despair
 and think that you are through,
For there’s always a tomorrow
 and the hope of starting new.

Don’t hunt after trouble, but look for success
You’ll find what you look for, don’t look for distress;
If you see your shadow, remember, I pray,
That the sun is still shining, but You’re in the way;

Don’t grumble, don’t bluster, don’t dream and don’t shirk,
Don’t think of your worries, but think of your work.
The worries will vanish, the work will be done,
No man sees his shadow who faces the sun.

-Source Unknown

If nothing else, maybe someone else can learn from our mistakes.

Fail – yet rejoice; because no less
The failure which makes thy distress
May teach another full success.

It may be that, in some great need,
Thy life’s poor fragments are decreed
To help build up a lofty deed.

-A. A. Procter

Some One Can Do It

When some one says, "It can’t be done,"
And squirms ‘neath manhood’s toiling;
Complains about "No battles won"
His speech with whimpers boiling;
Some other man with steady tread
Success attains – how was it?
Pursues his course with aching head;
Plods on and works and does it!

"It can’t be done!" He strikes his pate
And rails against his station,
While off’ring to the god of Fate
His daily weak oblation.
Yet other men whose lot in life
Was "down" from Fate’s worst stacking,
Go on with plucky gain through strife,
And win without a backing!

When someone says, "It ain’t no use
I’ve had no hand that boosted;
My head’s been thrust within the noose;
Ill luck on me has roosted"
Some other man far lower down
On Fortune’s fateful ladder
Mounts on his way and wins the crowd
For ill luck none the sadder!

When someone says, "It can’t be done,"
Believe it not one minute;
For near at hand one’s on the run
To see the prize and win it.
The baffled losers rub their eyes,
And idly cry "How was it?"
But while they yearn to grasp the prize
Their next-door neighbor does it!

-David V. Bush