CHAPTER XVI
RADIANCIES OF CONTENT AND DISCONTENT
I want to radiate a spirit of content. The dictionary says that to be content is to be "held full." If one is full, that is enough. He is satisfied. He has peace of mind. All this is implied in the word content. I want to radiate this sense of fullness, of satisfaction. I want people to feel that I am full of physical health, full of mental vigor, full of spiritual power, and, with the exceptions that I shall note later on in this chapter, that I am satisfied.
I want to radiate a large-hearted contentment with things as they are. I am content with the world as it is. Its glories, its beauties, its charms, its allurements, its variety, satisfy me. There is nothing in scenery that the mind can conceive that I cannot find; every sort of climate is offered to me. I can surround myself with people or I can dwell in the virgin solitudes. I can live under the gray skies of the East or under the cerulean blue of the West. The snow-covered heights of the Himalayas are mine or the wastes of the Sahara. I can toss on the stormy ocean or bask in the sun-kissed gardens of the South. It is a glorious, beautiful, blessed world.
Yet I hear people complaining on every hand. It is too hot, or they wish it hadn't rained. Why does the wind blow so fiercely? The snow has just come at the wrong time. Then, too, they find fault with the every-day occurrences of life. They are angry because they missed a train, have failed to carry through a business transaction, were delayed and lost an important appointment. The other day I met a young man holding his wrist, and with a look of severe pain on his face. In doing some work in the gymnasium he hurt his hand and wrist. It is hard to radiate contentment under the annoyance and pain of such things as this and the circumstances I have mentioned. Yet in these, as in all other things in life, I believe with Shakspeare:
There is a Divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough hew them as we may.
Many a time it is the best thing in the world to have lost an appointment, to have missed a train, to have sprained one's wrist. The wet weather is as good as the sunshine, and the storm equally beneficent with the calm. Hence I want to be content and to radiate my content with things as they are. Discontent is a burning acid. It eats away the happy, blessed things of life. It destroys the beauty of an otherwise perfect life. It takes away the smile and substitutes a frown. It injects bitterness into words that would otherwise be sweet. It changes the kind word into an angry curse. And it burns and corrodes far deeper than one imagines.