(3)
A man out of place is like a fish out of water. Its fins mean nothing, they are only a hindrance. The fish can do nothing but flounder out of its element. But as soon as the fins feel the water, they mean something...
A man out of place may manage to get a living, but he has lost the buoyancy, energy and enthusiasm which are as natural as to a man in his place as his breath. He is industrious, but he works mechanically and without heart. It is to support himself and family, not because he cannot help it. Dinner time does not come two hours before he realizes it; a man of place is constantly looking at his watch and thinking of his salary.
If a man is in his place he is happy, joyous, cheerful, energetic, fertile in resources. The days are all too short for him. All his faculties give their consent to his work; say “yes” to his occupation. He is a man; he respects himself and is happy because all his powers are at play in their natural sphere.
To be out of place is demoralizing to all the powers of manhood. We can’t cheat nature out of her aim; if she has set all the currents of your life toward medicine or law, you will only be a mediocrity at anything else.
Will-power and application cannot make a farmer of a born painter any more than a lumbering draught horse can be changed into a race horse. When the powers are not used along the line of their strength they become demoralized, weakened, deteriorated. Self-respect, enthusiasm and courage ooze out; we become half-hearted and success is impossible. Man only grows when he is developing along the lines of his own individuality, and not when he is trying to be somebody else...
—Adapted from Orison Marden, “Out of Place”
Summarize in your own words the main idea of this passage.
A man should be in his appropriate place to fulfill talents and use strengths.
How do you define “a man out of place” and “a man in his place”?
A man out of place is a man that can’t find a job that fits his interest, talent and strength and be engaged in something that he is not good at. A man in his place, on the contrary, is someone who can find a suitable job and do what he is good at.
Explain or rewrite the underlined sentence
The nature has given us some kinds of talents as a gift, so if we don’t take advantage of these talents and do other things which we are not good at, it means we are cheating the nature. So we should make us in the right place and make good use of our talents and abilities.