ROCKEFELLER’S LETTER TO HIS SON
------DO IT RIGHT NOW
A Thousand Years of Ice★
2010-5-20

Life is a great campaign.
Motto: opportunity is created by opportunity.
Bad habits can control us and decide whether to fail or succeed, which are easy to get used to, but tough to get rid of.
Succeeding accomplishing the application of a good idea is more worthy than only thinking out a thousand excellent ideas
at home.
(To conquer you have need to do，to do again，ever to do！And your security would be insured.)
December24，1897
Dear John:
The words from smart people are easy to be memorized. There is a good saying from a person of wisdom, “education
contains many aspects, but it itself doesn’t teach you anything”! This great person had shown us a truth: if you don’t take any
action, even the most useful, beautiful and available philosophies are useless.
I always believe that opportunity is created by opportunity. Any seemingly excellent plan has disadvantage, though just a
common plan it is. However if you would really implement it and keep on, that should be better than a good plan which has
been given up halfway, because the former is fighting all the time, but the later is wasting all
previous efforts. As I mentioned above, there is no secret of success. In order to obtain
positive results in life, owning exceptional intelligence and special skills is certainly fine,
but if without, that doesn’t matter. As long as you could work vigorously, you would also
approach success.
The sad truth is that most people haven’t remembered this warning, resulting in making
themselves mediocre. Having a look at those ordinary people, you will find they are living
passively, because what they have said is far more than what they have done, only speaking
without doing anything whatsoever. Every one of them is good at finding excuses for
himself, so he would find all kinds of excuses to postpone until it has been proven that he is
truly wrong or incapable to do anything or too late to do it.
In contrast to those people, it seems that I am a bit smarter and more cunning. Gates has
praised me as a willing and active actor. I happily accept this praise, for I haven’t let it down.
Acting vigorously is another characteristic of mine. I never like to be an armchair strategist,
because I clearly understand no acting is without consequence. There is nothing in the world you can get without thinking out
many ideas and making them into reality. As long as alive, it is certain that you must act.
Many people admit that without the foundation of wisdom everything is useless, but the sadder thing is that even if you
have got knowledge and wisdom, without acting, everything is still useless. Humans should learn to stop where they should
stop. Prepare enough, but do not act all the time, since in the end this must lead to waste of time. In other words, everything
must have a limitation. We can’t get into the trap of constant practicing and planning, but accept the reality: no matter how
precise a plan is, we still can’t exactly predict the last solution.
I can’t deny that planning is very important, but that is only the first step. Planning is not acting, and impossible to replace
acting. Just like playing golf, without getting into the first hole, unlikely to get the second it is. Acting can resolve everything.
Without acting, nothing occurs. Anyway, no one can buy the insurance of absolute security, but what we can do is to be
determined to implement our plans.
All those who lack of action have a bad habit in common: they like to keep everything as it were now, and refuse any
change. I think this is a foul habit full of deceit and self-destruction. Because everything is changing like human’s living and
ding. But because of inner scare (about future), many people resist changing, even though the situations now are not satisfactory.
Seeing those who should have succeeded, but gained nothing valuable, you would find it difficult to resist the temptation not to
pity them.
Yes, it is true that about unknown future everyone would feel more or less worried or scared, or question whether to do or
not when making some pivotal decisions. But those who like implementing soon would ignite soul with determination, and then
think out all kind of methods to accomplish their dreams, and meanwhile prepare enough courage to conquer difficulties.
Many people lack of actions are na?ve and like letting everything go by nature. They naively assume that others would care
about them. In fact, except themselves nobody is interested in their troubles, for people only fancy their own things. Like
business, the more profit we could get, the more active we would become, for whether to succeed or fail doesn’t matter to
others. At such time, we’d better work hard more. If too lazy or scared, result would undoubtedly be disappointing.
As long as a person can rely on himself, he won’t let himself down, meanwhile on the other hand will add more
opportunities to control his life. The clever only think to make something happen.
The most frustrating thing in life is that always been thinking too much you have, which not only leads no enough time left
to accomplish, but makes you worry too much about numerous steps in the process and then feel shocked, sacred. Therefore all
are in vain factually. We must admit that no one can accomplish all things. Clever people understand not all actions lead to good
results, but only wise actions can bring about significant consequences. As a result, they only do the works which is most
relevant to target and can cause positive effects. Therefore clever people can make the most valuable contribution, and get the
best return.
To eat an elephant, you must bite mouth by mouth. So does work! Trying to accomplish all things must waste many
opportunities. My motto is: Rockefeller doesn’t treat emergency fairly.
Many people make themselves passives, for they always do something until all conditions have been got. Life is full of
opportunities, but none perfectible. Those passives are common all their lives, just because they always want to get everything
prepared and then do something. This is bloody idiot’s way! We must compromise life to believe that the opportunity we have
in hand right now is what we really need, which can help you avoid the swamp of forever crazy waiting before implementing.
We are pursuing perfection, yet, in real life, human have never got perfectible things, but only more approaching
perfections. Only doing something until all are ready, it must lead to waiting forever and letting opportunity to others. Those
people can never leave their parents. To become the kind of person “I want to do now”, stop all day dreams and always think of
what to do right now. Those words, like tomorrow, next week, future, etc. are familiar with the word: impossible.
Everyone has experienced the days when losing all confidence and doubted self-ability, especially in failure or setback.
However the person who knows the art of implement can overcome barricade with strong willpower. He would tell himself
everyone can fail, sometimes very tragically; he would tell himself: no matter how much I have prepared or predicted, in real
doing, it still can’t avoid failure. The sad truth is that passives never consider failure as an opportunity of study and growing up,
but all the time they tell themselves: maybe I am really not able to, which leads to fail joining future implementing.
Most people believe: think and you will succeed, but I treat it as a lie. You can buy a dozen of good ideas for a mere cent.
Good idea is just the first step of a series of actions, and you still need prepare and then plan the next step, and then the third. In
this world there isn’t short of the person full of good ideas, but extremely short of the person who not only can think out a good
idea but implement it until success.
How to judge a person’s ability are not that how many things he has contained in his brain, but how many actions he has
done. Everyone trusts the person patient and diligent to take a work, thinking: this person can speak and act, so he must know
how to do it well! I have never heard that a person gets praise before disturbing others or having not implemented or only
implement when getting order. Those leaders at industry, government and army are all capable and 100% self-starters. Those
who always watch and never implement can never be leaders.
No matter whether you are active people or reactive, they are both up to habit. Habit is like a rope. If we could weave one
every day, it would finally become a very thick one which is strong enough, impossible to break. Habit rope leads us to
mountain peak or low ebb, which depends on a good habit or a bad one. Bad habit can control our success or not, which is easy
to get, but difficult to serve. Good habit is hard to cultivate, but easy to persist.
My son! Life is like a great campaign. To win, you must work harder, harder and harder, forever hard, in which case that
can guarantee your safety.
Merry Christmas! I believe there is no better gift than this letter at such special moment.
Love Dad!