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Show HOW TO BE HAPPY. There's a charm in the very word. We all wish to attain that state in which we can say happiness is ours. We confidently expect to do so. Our wish, in the matter, is not a question, about which there is the least shadow of a doubt, but an undisputed fact. We all agree on this point. But do any of us agree as to what happiness is to be? Just in what form it is to appear? How many when they do possess it, find they have what they sought for? And how many, alas, never find it at all. To each the word has a peculiar signification. One perhaps expects to find in society all that is enjoyable in life. To another, the best to entertain, best to wear, the enjoyment of all the good things in life means happiness and ???? admiring group of worshipers, who allegiance to his worth or talent shall never falter, is the goal of ambition. In whatever way, by whatever means you expect to reach this much desired haven - if the way is in all joy and lightheartedness, if the means are to be such as will accommodate self and best advance the interests of self, to the utter disregard of whether or no, you interfere with the interests and plans of others. If for self, you expect of the future all favorable treatment. Then just let me say right here happiness is not for you. In this great kaleidoscopic existence are all sorts of pictures, and the trouble is, that until the picture turns up, you have no idea as to its color or form. Who can tell what a year will bring forth? Nay, who can tell what a day will bring forth? If you are of a philosophical turn of mind, if you have ever done any thinking about this matter of fact yet puzzling life of ours, you will make that picture when it presents itself, meet the end for which you are working, or rather, you will accommodate your plans to the picture. This picture is called by various names a common one being luck. There are people who are always complaining of their bad luck. As a rule, it is those who think the least, whose complaints are loudest, and "luck" the worst. If they would stop complaining their "luck" would improve. But they insist on hunting out the dark side of everything, in trying to peer behind every blessing to see if they cannot discover a curse lurking in the shadow, thus their "bad luck" is only what they deserve. Of course there is a dark side to everything. There is a dark side to this bit and we are all bound to see it. There is a dark side to the future life, I pray God we will never see it. There are people who believe there is merit in living a life of gloom and austerity. They argue: "What is there to rejoice over? The crimes and sorrows of a world? How can I be happy when I am surrounded on all sides by misery and heartaches. Look at the life of our blessed example. Was it not spent amid gloom and suffering? Was it not ended in anguish the most terrible? Be happy? No; I know of nothing to make me so." And, with a groan the speaker turns away, and you feel a chill, a desire to get out into the sunshine. Why dos God send this blessed sunshine, if we are not to bask in it? What are all the beauties of nature, if we are not to enjoy them? And the misery and crimes, and heartaches, will they be dissipated, be made more bearable by groans? True, the life of our Savior was spent amidst scenes of gloom, but with cheering words he scattered the night. And where he saw sorrow he changed it to joy. Only a supremely selfish character can behave and practice the theory of self-abnegation to an extent that excludes everything else. "Love thy neighbor as thyself," is a dead letter to such a mind. And yet this is the sum total of all earthly happiness. You are a part of a great whole. When you act, the whole is affected. Every desire you have links itself and you to "thy neighbor." Spend a life on which so much depends in longing after the unattainable, in lamentations that the world is so wicked, in sighing and groaning over the miseries, and just doubling them by so doing. And letting the opportunities of enjoying, and so helping others to enjoy, the blessings of life slip by us. Our whole nature cries out against it. No; it was never meant to be so. Life was meant to be happy. Not a whirlwind happiness that has for its object nothing but present enjoyment, but that quiet steady life that, pursuing the even tenor of our ways, never forgetting to "Do unto other" and always striving to lighten sorrow. That is all of happiness this world offers. But in offering that, it gives too us what neither timer nor tide can change. And if you will so search for happiness, you will one day wake up to the fact that you are no longer a searcher after but a possessor of that which makes life worth the living. - Virginia Frazer in St. (Saint) Louis Magazine. |