Is the man who will smile
When everything goes dead wrong.’
“P.S.—This applies to women also.”
After all, it is a question of mind-discipline. Let us once realize that we lack this power over ourselves and determine to acquire it, and we are in a fair way to be sweeter and better.
There might be classes established for the teaching of self-poise to all the wrangling women, all the sensitive women, all the over-ambitious women, all the selfish women. But, dear me! how many of us could say we are beyond the need of joining? And, besides, there are no Marcus Aureliuses in the teachers’ bureaus, just now, either.
We are placed in the scheme of life just where we were meant to be. Now, then, let us live it out. What is meant for us to do, let us do; but let us not worry over what is not meant for us. It depends on us whether we take this for a world of honest, cheerful work, or a world of hard labor. It is all character-building. Ever think of that? All character-building.
All the world needs of us, all God asks of us, is that we live out our own lives truly, faithfully, earnestly and the best we possibly can. It is for us to find out how—not sit down or hamper our work with worrying about the how.
There are two ways of walking through the world—plodding dejectedly along with our eyes on the muddy road, seeing only the obstacles in our way and feeling only the burdens on our backs; or holding our heads high, seeing the beautiful broad sky above, smelling the scent of flowers, tasting the delights of living and feeling the love of God. Which shall we choose?
A pleasant face carries joy and sheds sunshine. A worried, harassed countenance may make a whole roomful miserable. Every happy thought lends a pleasant line to the face, and there is no excuse for looking otherwise. All girls are more or less pretty at twenty; but it has been her own fault if the woman of fifty has not the best kind of beauty—that indefinable sweetness of graciousness that reflects itself in every feature of the face. Happiness is ours if we will but reach out for our small share and make the most of it. But if we reject it, saying, “What have we in common with thee?” we deserve to be miserable, and we are. More than that, we are disagreeable to other people; and in this world that is a thing we ought to consider.
Nothing that other people say or do can affect us much unless we let it, and it is much easier not to be troubled by outside worries—and all worries are outside our true lives—than to nurse trouble.