Salt Lake Telegram | 1928-12-06 | Page 6 | Happiness in Little Things

T V j t Ij Happiness in Little Things A 9 IF jk you ou want to be happy you must learn how to busy yourself with unimportant things gs This bit of advice comes from irom A. A d Newton in a recent book This Book Book Collecting Game Mr Newton explains explains ex ex- ex- ex plains that by following it himself he has happiness and he cites instances of others who have done likewise 1 There was for far instance a clergyman who got g t interested in studying the natural history of of- his Ius parish He spent hours daily watching r the the- birds bats ats frogs squirrels fishes and insects in insects in- in sects of the nearby countryside and lived an ah ex exceedingly happy life To be sure he neglected his pastoral duties very badly forgot forit for for- got it to get married and took look no interest in the things that were goi going g on in the world world but but after all he lie was happy A philosophy like like like that hardly fits our American J temper From Froni the day the first Pilgrim father stepped ashore on slippery surf rf s Plymouth Rock we have had scant use for anything but bul hard work anc and plenty pf of it Whether our own ancestors came dune from froni England or from Lithuania we have vr all ll been imbued with the Ai American idea of service an an idea prevalent years before the luncheon clubs took it up Pro Probably ably that is one one reason why so many ff foreign visitors have gone home to rep report rt that Americans ns do not seem happy they haPPy they ar are too restless It is largely true We e are bornand born and bred to a tradition that says that an anAm Am Americ Americans American's first dut is to fo o find a job that will take every ounce of his energy and ability In fh th tho old days this was vas necessary A pioneer in u u L wilderness cabin who tried to in interest interest in- in terest him lf in the unimportant would pres pre presently have provided the Indians with a new scalp Th The early settlers had to conquer a continent and it t was a tremendous job They did it it most of them never even had time time to wonder whether they were as happy as as they might have been S The pioneer days are re over now and we more leisure We can devote ourselves t to unimportant things thin if we want to and nd no nobody body lody m be harmed Y Yet ct there is small chan chance chane e. e that any very great number of us us s swill jwill do lO it the old tradition stilt is still is strong and strong and rightly so We have left the old physical frontier behind us only to reach a new on one I Ve We have taken the puzzling incomprehensible sible age which b burst upon the orld with the invention of the steam engine engine engine en en- gine and rid have und undertaken taken to develop it to its logical conclusion We are s still ill pioneering So probably most of us will have to de defer deL fer th this the business of devoting a lifetime to the search earch for happiness It would be a a. fine thing to do but dO-but but it just isn't in us We ar arf are f fated ted tov tog be workers And it i is our hope that out of this endless struggle and devotion to tp duly duty will flower some day a anew new er in which the children of our pur children can hold holdfast f fast st to the he happiness s which we have not time to seek