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Show WENT TO SEE “poor dear Isabelle” a few years ago. My friend, a woman whohad always led a’ sheltered and secure life, had been deprived by death and various accidents of fortune of most of the amenities. Economic necessity had forced her from her gracious background into & mean little room in a shabby neighborhood and into whatever employment she could get, for she was untrained. The loss of social opportunity and many so-called “friends” was intrinsic in the reduction of her standard of living. Expecting to commiserate with her for her troubles and cheer her up, I arrived in a mood I can only think of now as patronizing. In spite of her aching feet, Isabelle was not only chipper but positively merry and as winning and entertaining as ever before. Somewhat dashed by the failure of my Lady Bountiful mission, I said, looking around the dark little cubbyhole. “Well, Isabelle, I don’t see how you can find happiness in 8 place like this!” Isabelle turned her serious face to me. “I hunt it,” she said. The upshot of this occasion was that Isabelle cheered me up and I recognized, possibly for the first time, that there is such a thing as a talent for happiness. Most people are equipped with many more talents than they make the effort to develop, and so the talent for happiness must exist in millions who choose to ignore it, fail to nurture it, or stifle it through ignorance, Just as a musician must consistently practice and develop technique to make glorious music, so must people who cherish happiness explore and exercise whatever apift-thep-have fotos =e Almost everyone who has arrived at maturity knows that genuine happiness is not the product of material possessions, power, fame, popularity, success, or any of the classic motivations assigned for obtaining it. Happiness is a do-it-yourself art. It is impossible “to make someone happy,” and promises of this sort are footless. Nor can someone make you happy. Efforts to acquire happiness by possessing or being possessed by another are as doomed to 4 Family Weekly, July 16, 1967 YOU CAN DEVE OP A TAL T FOR HAPPINESS LH By MARGARET COUSINS Author of “Christmas Gift,” “Stories of Love and Marriage,” “Traffic with Evil,” etc. This noted authortells how you can discover and nurture the most preciousgift of all |