Part Two In A Nutshell 7 страница

hope of return.

Does that sound like sheer, impractical, visionary idealism? It isn't. It is just horse sense.

It is a good way for you and me to find the happiness we long for. I know. I have seen it

happen right in my own family. My own mother and father gave for the joy of helping

others. We were poor-always overwhelmed by debts. Yet, poor as we were, my father

and mother always managed to send money every year to an orphans' home-the

Christian Home in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Mother and Father never visited that home.

Probably no one thanked them for their gifts-except by letter-but they were richly

repaid, for they had the joy of helping little children-without wishing for or expecting

any gratitude in return.

After I left home, I would always send Father and Mother a cheque at Christmas and

urge them to indulge in a few luxuries for themselves. But they rarely did. When I came

home a few days before Christmas, Father would tell me of the coal and groceries they

had bought for some " widder woman" in town who had a lot of children and no money to

buy food and fuel. What joy they got out of these gifts-the joy of giving without

accepting anything whatever in return!

I believe my father would almost have qualified for Aristotle's description of the ideal

man-the man most worthy of being happy. " The ideal man, " said Aristotle, " takes joy in

doing favours for others; but he feels ashamed to have others do favours for him. For it

is a mark of superiority to confer a kindness; but it is a mark of inferiority to receive it. "

Here is the second point I am trying to make in this chapter: If we want to find

happiness, let's stop thinking about gratitude or ingratitude and give for the inner joy of

giving.

Parents have been tearing their hair about the ingratitude of children for ten thousand

years. Even Shakespeare's King Lear cried out: " How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is

to have a thankless child! "

But why should children be thankful-unless we train them to be? Ingratitude is natural-

like weeds. Gratitude is like a rose. It has to be fed and watered and cultivated and

loved and protected.

If our children are ungrateful, who is to blame? Maybe we are. If we have never taught

them to express gratitude to others, how can we expect them to be grateful to us?

I know a man in Chicago who has cause to complain of the ingratitude of his stepsons.

He slaved in a box factory, seldom earning more than forty dollars a week. He married a

widow, and she persuaded him to borrow money and send her two grown sons to

college. Out of his salary of forty dollars a week, he had to pay for food, rent, fuel,

clothes, and also for the payments on his notes. He did this for four years, working like

a coolie, and never complaining.

Did he get any thanks? No; his wife took it all for granted- and so did her sons. They

never imagined that they owed their stepfather anything-not even thanks!

Who was to blame? The boys? Yes; but the mother was even more to blame. She thought

it was a shame to burden their young lives with " a sense of obligation". She didn't want

her sons to " start out under debt". So she never dreamed of saying: " What a prince your

stepfather is to help you through college! " Instead, she took the attitude: " Oh, that's the

least he can do. "

She thought she was sparing her sons, but in reality, she was sending them out into life

with the dangerous idea that the world owed them a living. And it was a dangerous

idea- for one of those sons tried to " borrow" from an employer, and ended up in jail!

We must remember that our children are very much what we make them. For example,

my mother's sister-Viola Alexander, of 144 West Minnehala Parkway, Minneapolis -is a

shining example of a woman who has never had cause to complain about the

" ingratitude" of children. When I was a boy, Aunt Viola took her own mother into her

home to love and take care of; and she did the same thing for her husband's mother. I

can still close my eyes and see those two old ladies sitting before the fire in Aunt Viola's

farmhouse. Were they any " trouble" to Aunt Viola? Oh, often, I suppose. But you would

never have guessed it from her attitude. She loved those old ladies-so she pampered

them, and spoiled them, and made them feel at home. In addition, Aunt Viola had six

children of her own; but it never occurred to her that she was doing anything especially

noble, or deserved any halos for taking these old ladies into her home. To her, it was

the natural thing, the right thing, the thing she wanted to do.

Where is Aunt Viola today? Well, she has now been a widow for twenty-odd years, and

she has five grown-up children- five separate households-all clamouring to share her,

and to have her come and live in their homes! Her children adore her; they never get

enough of her. Out of " gratitude"? Nonsense! It is love-sheer love. Those children

breathed in warmth and radiant human-kindness all during their childhoods. Is it any

wonder that, now that the situation is reversed, they give back love?

So let us remember that to raise grateful children, we have to be grateful. Let us

remember " little pitchers have big ears" -and watch what we say. To illustrate-the next

time we are tempted to belittle someone's kindness in the presence of our children, let's

stop. Let's never say: " Look at these dishcloths Cousin Sue sent for Christmas. She knit

them herself. They didn't cost her a cent! " The remark may seem trivial to us-but the

children are listening. So, instead, we had better say: " Look at the hours Cousin Sue

spent making these for Christmas! Isn't she nice? Let's write her a thank-you note right

now. " And our children may unconsciously absorb the habit of praise and appreciation.

To avoid resentment and worry over ingratitude, here is Rule 3:

A. Instead of worrying about ingratitude, let's expect it. Let's remember that Jesus

healed ten lepers in one day-and only one thanked Him. Why should we expect more

gratitude than Jesus got?

B. Let's remember that the only way to find happiness is not to expect gratitude, but to

give for the joy of giving.

C. Let's remember that gratitude is a " cultivated" trait; so if we want our children to be

grateful, we must train them to be grateful.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter 15 - Would You Take A Million Dollars For What You Have?

I have known Harold Abbott for years. He lives at 820 South Madison Avenue, Webb City,

Missouri. He used to be my lecture manager. One day he and I met in Kansas City and he

drove me down to my farm at Belton, Missouri. During that drive, I asked him how he

kept from worrying; and he told me an inspiring story that I shall never forget.

" I used to worry a lot, " he said, " but one spring day in 1934, I was walking down West

Dougherty Street in Webb City when I saw a sight that banished all my worries. It all

happened in ten seconds, but during those ten seconds I learned more about how to live

than I had learned in the previous ten years. For two years I had been running a grocery

store in Webb City, " Harold Abbott said, as he told me the story. " I had not only lost all

my savings, but I had incurred debts that took me seven years to pay back. My grocery

store had been closed the previous Saturday; and now I was going to the Merchants and

Miners Bank to borrow money so I could go to Kansas City to look for a job.

I walked like a beaten man. I had lost all my fight and faith. Then suddenly I saw coming

down the street a man who had no legs. He was sitting on a little wooden platform

equipped with wheels from roller skates. He propelled himself along the street with a

block of wood in each hand. I met him just after he had crossed the street and was

starting to lift himself up a few inches over the kerb to the sidewalk. As he tilted his

little wooden platform to an angle, his eyes met mine. He greeted me with a grand

smile. 'Good morning, sir. It is a fine morning, isn't it? ' he said with spirit. As I stood

looking at him, I realised how rich I was. I had two legs. I could walk. I felt ashamed of

my self-pity. I said to myself if he can be happy, cheerful, and confident without legs, I

certainly can with legs. I could already feel my chest lifting. I had intended to ask the

Merchants and Miners Bank for only one hundred dollars. But now I had courage to ask

for two hundred. I had intended to say that I wanted to go to Kansas City to try to get a

job. But now I announced confidently that I wanted to go to Kansas City to get a job. I

got the loan; and I got the job.

" I now have the following words pasted on my bathroom mirror, and I read them every

morning as I shave:

I had the blues because I had no shoes,

Until upon the street, I met a man who had no feet. "

I once asked Eddie Rickenbacker what was the biggest lesson he had learned from

drifting about with his companions in life rafts for twenty-one days, hopelessly lost in

the Pacific. " The biggest lesson I learned from that experience, " he said, " was that if you

have all the fresh water you want to drink and all the food you want to eat, you ought

never to complain about anything. "

Time ran an article about a sergeant who had been wounded on Guadalcanal. Hit in the

throat by a shell fragment, this sergeant had had seven blood transfusions. Writing a

note to his doctor, he asked: " Will I live? " The doctor replied: " Yes. " He wrote another

note, asking: " Will I be able to talk? " Again the answer was yes. He then wrote another

note, saying: " Then what in hell am I worrying about? "

Why don't you stop right now and ask yourself: " What in the hell am I worrying about? "

You will probably find that it is comparatively unimportant and insignificant.

About ninety per cent of the things in our lives are right and about ten per cent are

wrong. If we want to be happy, all we have to do is to concentrate on the ninety per

cent that are right and ignore the ten per cent that are wrong. If we want to be worried

and bitter and have stomach ulcers, all we have to do is to concentrate on the ten per

cent that are wrong and ignore the ninety per cent that are glorious.

The words " Think and Thank" are inscribed in many of the Cromwellian churches of

England. These words ought to be inscribed in our hearts, too: " Think and Thank". Think

of all we have to be grateful for, and thank God for all our boons and bounties.

Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels, was the most devastating pessimist in

English literature. He was so sorry that he had been born that he wore black and fasted

on his birthdays; yet, in his despair, this supreme pessimist of English literature praised

the great health-giving powers of cheerfulness and happiness. " The best doctors in the

world, " he declared, " are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet, and Doctor Merryman. "

You and I may have the services of " Doctor Merryman" free every hour of the day by

keeping our attention fixed on all the incredible riches we possess-riches exceeding by

far the fabled treasures of Ali Baba. Would you sell both your eyes for a billion dollars?

What would you take for your two legs? Your hands? Your hearing? Your children? Your

family? Add up your assets, and you will find that you won't sell what you have for all

the gold ever amassed by the Rockefellers, the Fords and the Morgans combined.

But do we appreciate all this? Ah, no. As Schopenhauer said: " We seldom think of what

we have but always of what we lack. " Yes, the tendency to " seldom think of what we

have but always of what we lack" is the greatest tragedy on earth. It has probably

caused more misery than all the wars and diseases in history.

It caused John Palmer to turn " from a regular guy into an old grouch", and almost

wrecked his home. I know because he told me so.

Mr. Palmer lives at 30 19th Avenue, Paterson, New Jersey. " Shortly after I returned from

the Army, " he said, " I started in business for myself. I worked hard day and night. Things

were going nicely. Then trouble started. I couldn't get parts and materials. I was afraid I

would have to give up my business. I worried so much that I changed from a regular guy

into an old grouch. I became so sour and cross that-well, I didn't know it then; but I now

realise that I came very near to losing my happy home. Then one day a young, disabled

veteran who works for me said: 'Johnny, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. You take

on as if you were the only person in the world with troubles. Suppose you do have to

shut up shop for a while-so what? You can start up again when things get normal. You've

got a lot to be thankful for. Yet you are always growling. Boy, how I wish I were in your

shoes I Look at me. I've got only one arm, and half of my face is shot away, and yet I am

not complaining. If you don't stop your growling and grumbling, you will lose not only

your business, but also your health, your home, and your friends! '

" Those remarks stopped me dead in my tracks. They made me realise how well off I was.

I resolved then and there that I would change and be my old self again-and I did. "

A friend of mine, Lucile Blake, had to tremble on the edge of tragedy before she

learned to be happy about what she had instead of worrying over what she lacked.

I met Lucile years ago, when we were both studying short-story writing in the Columbia

University School of Journalism. Nine years ago, she got the shock of her life. She was

living then in Tucson, Arizonia. She had-well, here is the story as she told it to me:

" I had been living in a whirl: studying the organ at the University of Arizona, conducting

a speech clinic in town, and teaching a class in musical appreciation at the Desert

Willow Ranch, where I was staying. I was going in for parties, dances, horseback rides

under the stars. One morning I collapsed. My heart! 'You will have to lie in bed for a

year of complete rest, ' the doctor said. He didn't encourage me to believe I would ever

be strong again.

" In bed for a year! To be an invalid-perhaps to die! I was terror-stricken! Why did all this

have to happen to me? What had I done to deserve it? I wept and wailed. I was bitter

and rebellious. But I did go to bed as the doctor advised. A neighbour of mine, Mr.

Rudolf, an artist, said to me: 'You think now that spending a year in bed will be a

tragedy. But it won't be. You will have time to think and get acquainted with yourself.

You will make more spiritual growth in these next few months than you have made

during all your previous life. ' I became calmer, and tried to develop a new sense of

values.

I read books of inspiration. One day I heard a radio commentator say: 'You can express

only what is in your own consciousness. ' I had heard words like these many times before,

but now they reached down inside me and took root. I resolved to think only the

thoughts I wanted to live by: thoughts of joy, happiness, health. I forced myself each

morning, as soon as I awoke, to go over all the things I had to be grateful for. No pain. A

lovely young daughter. My eyesight. My hearing. Lovely music on the radio. Time to

read. Good food. Good friends. I was so cheerful and had so many visitors that the

doctor put up a sign saying that only one visitor at a time would be allowed in my cabin-

and only at certain hours.

" Nine years have passed since then, and I now lead a full, active life. I am deeply

grateful now for that year I spent in bed. It was the most valuable and the happiest year

I spent in Arizona. The habit I formed then of counting my blessings each morning still

remains with me. It is one of my most precious possessions. I am ashamed to realise that

I never really learned to live until I feared I was going to die. "

My dear Lucile Blake, you may not realise it, but you learned the same lesson that Dr.

Samuel Johnson learned two hundred years ago. " The habit of looking on the best side of

every event, " said Dr. Johnson, " is worth more than a thousand pounds a year. "

Those words were uttered, mind you, not by a professional optimist, but by a man who

had known anxiety, rags, and hunger for twenty years-and finally became one of the

most eminent writers of his generation and the most celebrated conversationalist of all

time.

Logan Pearsall Smith packed a lot of wisdom into a few words when he said: " There are

two things to aim at in life: first, to get what you want; and, after that, to enjoy it.

Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second. "

Would you like to know how to make even dishwashing at the kitchen sink a thrilling

experience? If so, read an inspiring book of incredible courage by Borghild Dahl. It is

called I Wanted to See.

This book was written by a woman who was practically blind for half a century. " I had

only one eye, " she writes, " and it was so covered with dense scars that I had to do all my

seeing through one small opening in the left of the eye. I could see a book only by

holding it up close to my face and by straining my one eye as hard as I could to the left. "

But she refused to be pitied, refused to be considered " different". As a child, she

wanted to play hopscotch with other children, but she couldn't see the markings. So

after the other children had gone home, she got down on the ground and crawled along

with her eyes near to the marks. She memorised every bit of the ground where she and

her friends played and soon became an expert at running games. She did her reading at

home, holding a book of large print so close to her eyes that her eyelashes brushed the

pages. She earned two college degrees: an A B. from the University of Minnesota and a

Master of Arts from Columbia University.

She started teaching in the tiny village of Twin Valley, Minnesota, and rose until she

became professor of journalism and literature at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, South

Dakota. She taught there for thirteen years, lecturing before women's clubs and giving

radio talks about books and authors. " In the back of my mind, " she writes, " there had

always lurked a fear of total blindness. In order to overcome this, I had adopted a

cheerful, almost hilarious, attitude towards life. "

Then in 1943, when she was fifty-two years old, a miracle happened: an operation at

the famous Mayo Clinic. She could now see forty times as well as she had ever been able

to see before.

A new and exciting world of loveliness opened before her. She now found it thrilling

even to wash dishes in the kitchen sink. " I begin to play with the white fluffy suds in the

dish-pan, " she writes. " I dip my hands into them and I pick up a ball of tiny soap

bubbles. I hold them up against the light, and in each of them I can see the brilliant

colours of a miniature rainbow. "

As she looked through the window above the kitchen sink, she saw " the flapping grey-

black wings of the sparrows flying through the thick, falling snow. "

She found such ecstasy looking at the soap bubbles and sparrows that she closed her

book with these words: " 'Dear Lord, ' I whisper, 'Our Father in Heaven, I thank Thee. I

thank Thee. ' "

Imagine thanking God because you can wash dishes and see rainbows in bubbles and

sparrows flying through the snow 1

You and I ought to be ashamed of ourselves. All the days of our years we have been

living in a fairyland of beauty, but we have been too blind to see, too satiated to enjoy.

If we want to stop worrying and start living. Rule 4 is:

Count your blessings-not your troubles!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter 16 - Find Yourself And Be Yourself: Remember There Is No One Else on Earth

Like You

I have a letter from Mrs. Edith Allred, of Mount Airy, North Carolina: " As a child, I was

extremely sensitive and shy, " she says in her letter. " I was always overweight and my

cheeks made me look even fatter than I was. I had an old-fashioned mother who thought

it was foolish to make clothes look pretty. She always said: 'Wide will wear while narrow

will tear'; and she dressed me accordingly. I never went to parties; never had any fun;

and when I went to school, I never joined the other children in outside activities, not

even athletics. I was morbidly shy. I felt I was 'different' from everybody else, and

entirely undesirable.

" When I grew up, I married a man who was several years my senior. But I didn't change.

My in-laws were a poised and self-confident family. They were everything I should have

been but simply was not. I tried my best to be like them, but I couldn't. Every attempt

they made to draw me out of myself only drove me further into my shell. I became

nervous and irritable. I avoided all friends. I got so bad I even dreaded the sound of the

doorbell ringing! I was a failure. I knew it; and I was afraid my husband would find it

out. So, whenever we were in public, I tried to be gay, and overacted my part. I knew I

overacted; and I would be miserable for days afterwards. At last I became so unhappy

that I could see no point in prolonging my existence. I began to think of suicide. "

What happened to change this unhappy woman's life? Just a chance remark!

" A chance remark, " Mrs. Allred continued, " transformed my whole life. My mother-in-law

was talking one day of how she brought her children up, and she said: 'No matter what

happened, I always insisted on their being themselves. '... 'On being themselves. '...

That remark is what did it! In a flash, I realised I had brought all this misery on myself

by trying to fit myself into a pattern to which I did not conform.

" I changed overnight! I started being myself. I tried to make a study of my own

personality. Tried to find out what I was. I studied my strong points. I learned all I could

about colours and styles, and dressed in a way that I felt was becoming to me. I reached

out to make friends. I joined an organisation-a small one at first-and was petrified with

fright when they put me on a programme. But each time I spoke, I gained a little

courage. It took a long while-but today I have more happiness than I ever dreamed

possible. In rearing my own children, I have always taught them the lesson I had to learn

from such bitter experience: No matter what happens, always be yourself! "

This problem of being willing to be yourself is " as old as history, " says Dr. James Gordon

Gilkey, " and as universal as human life. " This problem of being unwilling to be yourself is

the hidden spring behind many neuroses and psychoses and complexes. Angelo Patri has

written thirteen books and thousands of syndicated newspaper articles on the subject of

child training, and he says: " Nobody is so miserable as he who longs to be somebody and

something other than the person he is in body and mind. "

This craving to be something you are not is especially rampant in Hollywood. Sam Wood,

one of Hollywood's best-known directors, says the greatest headache he has with

aspiring young actors is exactly this problem: to make them be themselves. They all

want to be second-rate Lana Turners, or third-rate Clark Gables. " The public has already

had that flavour, " Sam Wood keeps telling them; " now it wants something else. "

Before he started directing such pictures as Good-bye, Mr. Chips and For Whom the Bell

Tolls, Sam Wood spent years in the real-estate business, developing sales personalities.

He declares that the same principles apply in the business world as in the world of

moving pictures. You won't get anywhere playing the ape. You can't be a parrot.

" Experience has taught me, " says Sam Wood, " that it is safest to drop, as quickly as

possible, people who pretend to be what they aren't. "

I recently asked Paul Boynton, employment director for the Socony-Vacuum Oil

Company, what is the biggest mistake people make in applying for jobs. He ought to

know: he has interviewed more than sixty thousand job seekers; and he has written a

book entitled 6 Ways to Get a Job. He replied: " The biggest mistake people make in

applying for jobs is in not being themselves. Instead of taking their hair down and being

completely frank, they often try to give you the answers they think you want. " But it

doesn't work, because nobody wants a phony. Nobody ever wants a counterfeit coin.

A certain daughter of a street-car conductor had to learn that lesson the hard way. She