A Message to Garcia

By: Elbert Mubbard

            This essay A Message to Garcia was written so the author could complain about people in life that don’t work hard and would praise the people who do put in the time and work. In life when people are asked to do something usually people wont just do the task right off the bat but they ask questions like “why, when, how, and where”. Instead of just doing what they are told.

During the War a man named Garcia was lost in the mountains nowhere to be found. The President didn’t know what to do about the situation with Garcia. He chose a man and gave him a task. “Go find Garcia” he said to the man. Without him knowing any information and asking questions like “where is he” “who is he” “why do you want me to do this ” or “When should I leave” and other questions like The.  The man was given a task and just did what he was told to do. He just listened and did the task that was given to him.

This essay shows that some people In life just don’t do as much work as some other people. In the essay the man that goes and find Garcia worked harder without knowing any information because he had to look more deeper for the location of Garcia then if he just kept asking questions and know exactly what to do. By asking questions, you don’t learn anything and your not challenging yourself. Elbert Mubbard gives an example of this. “if you were to ask your assistant at work to find where a place was for you that was unknown, it would be more than likely that instead of just figuring it out on her own she would probably ask you a few questions about the task that has been given”. Elbert Mubbard might have used this as an example in the essay because Maybe an assistant does this so it’s just easier for her to find the information.

Asking questions is always the easy way out. Like what was said before about asking questions you just don’t learn anything from doing so and you’re not challenging yourself which you should want to do. For example, many people do this in school. Once the teacher has given instructions on what to do for book work we would start working. Sometimes people stumble over a hard question and can’t find it in the book. And instead of looking a little more for the page # they give up and ask what exact page the answer is on. What good does that do. You’re not challenging yourself or learning.

This essay by Elbert Mubbard really taught me about hard work. It showed me that it wasn’t just a story about the war and Garcia being lost in the mountains. It was about how much work people put in compared to others and usually the ones that do put in the work are very successful.