I read today of a friend who walked home with a workman. This is the workman's story: He had a son who was making a record in school. He had two daughters who helped their mother; he had a cottage, a little yard, a few flowers, a garden. He worked hard in a garage by day, and in the evening he cultivated his flowers, his garden, and his family. He had health, plus contentment a-plenty. His possessions were few and the care of them consequently a negligible effort.
Happiness flowed in the cracks of his door. Smiles were on his lips, joy in his heart, love in his bosom; that's the story my friend heard.
Then came a friend in an automobile on his way home from the club. He picked up my friend, and unfolded to him a tale of woe, misery and discontent.
This club man had money, automobiles, social standing, possessions, and all the objects and material things envious persons covet—yet he was unhappy. His whole life was spent chasing happiness, but his sixty horsepower auto wasn't fast enough to catch it.
The poor man I have told you about was the man who washed the club man's auto.
The strenuous pleasure seeker fails to get happiness; that is an inexorable law. He develops into a pessimist with an acrid, satirical disgust at all the simple, wholesome, worth-while, real things in life.
This is not a new discovery of mine; it's an old truth. Read Ecclesiastes, the pessimistic chronicle of the Bible, and you'll learn what comes to the pleasure-chaser, and you will know about "vanity and vexation of spirit."
Making Others Happy.
Do something for somebody. Engage in moves and enterprises that will be of service to the community and help the uplift of mankind. This making others happy is a positive insurance and guarantee of your own happiness.
You must keep a stiff upper lip, a stiff backbone; you must forget the wishbone and the envious heart.