HE CAN WHO THINKS HE CAN, AN IRON WILL & PUSHING TO THE FRONT. Orison Swett Marden
the principle cannot possibly be happy.
All the misery and the crime of the world rest upon the failure of human beings to understand the principle that no man can really be happy until he harmonizes with the best thing in him, with the divine, and not with the brute. No one can be happy who tries to harmonize his life with his animal instincts. The God (the good) in him is the only possible thing that can make him happy.
Real happiness cannot be bribed by anything sordid or low. Nothing mean or unworthy appeals to it. There is no affinity between them. Founded upon principle, it is as scientific as the laws of mathematics, and he who works his problem correctly will get the happiness answer.
There is only one way to secure the correct answer to a mathematical problem; and that is to work in harmony with mathematical laws. It would not matter if half the world believed there was some other way to get the answer, it would never come until the law was followed with the utmost exactitude. It does not matter that the great majority of the human race believe there is some other way of reaching the happiness goal. The fact that they are discontented, restless, and unhappy, shows that they are not working their problem scientifically.
We are all conscious that there is another man inside of us; that there accompanies us through life a divine, silent messenger—that other, higher, better self which speaks from the depths of our nature and which gives its consent, its “Amen,” to every right action, and condemns every wrong one.
Men and women in all times have tried to bribe this constant monitor; to purchase its approval; to silence it in nervous excitement; to drown it in vicious pleasure, with drink and with drugs—but all in vain. Men in every age have disregarded its warning; have tried in every possible way to get away from its tormenting reproofs when they have done wrong; but no amount of dissipation or excitement has ever been able to silence its voice. It always continues to give its unbiased, unbribed approval or disapproval to whatever we do.
There is nothing in which people deceive themselves so much as in the pursuit of happiness. There is only one way to find it—that is, by obeying the laws upon which we are built. We are constructed along the lines of truth and justice, and we cannot reach felicity by disobeying these, the very laws of our nature. So long as we continue to do evil, to get money by unfair means—by robbing others or taking advantage of them—so long as our ambition is to get rich anyway, we can never attain true happiness, because we are going in the wrong direction. We are introducing discord into our natures; encouraging the very opposite to what we are seeking.
It is just as impossible for a person to reach the normal state of harmony while he is practicing selfish, grasping methods, as it is to produce harmony in an orchestra with instruments that are all jangled and out of tune. To be happy, we must be in tune with the Infinite within us, in harmony with our better selves. There is no way to get around it.
The idea that we can practice wrong in our vocations, in our dealings with men, or in our pleasures, and then periodically seek forgiveness in our prayers or through our churches—the idea that a man can do wrong and be forgiven without remedying the wrong, or without forsaking the sin, has done more harm than almost any other thing in civilization. A clear conscience, a clean life, the elimination of selfishness, jealousy, envy, and hatred, are necessary to all high enjoyment.
One trouble with many of us is that we try, to make happiness too complicated an affair. But happiness really flees from complication, ceremony, and pretense. Nature has fixed her everlasting edict against complicated living. You can never force pleasure—it must be natural; it must come from sane living.
Real happiness is so simple that most people do not recognize it. They think it comes from doing something on a big scale, from a big fortune, or from some great achievement, when, in fact, it is derived from the simplest, the quietest, the most unpretentious things in the world.
Our great problem is to fill each day so full of sunshine, of plain living and high thinking, that there can be no commonness or unhappiness in our lives. Little kindnesses, pleasant words, and helps by the way; trifling courtesies and encouragements; duties faithfully done, unselfish service, work that we enjoy; friendships, love, and affection—all these are simple things, yet they are what constitute happiness.
The great sanitariums, the noted springs of the world, are crowded with rich people, sent there by their physicians to get rid of the effects of complicated living. They tried to force their pleasures and came to grief.
Not long ago, I dined in the home of a very rich man, and it took two hours and a half to serve the dinner. There were thirteen courses, made up of the richest kinds of food, and many of them absolutely incompatible with one another. In addition to this, there were seven kinds of wine! Think of any one being healthy or happy living upon such a diet!
What are the enjoyments of the average rich? Is there anything more vapid, insipid, unsatisfying than the chasing after that indefinite, mysterious something which they call happiness; that will-o'-the-wisp which is always beckoning them on, but ever eluding their grasp; that rainbow which recedes as they approach? They may enjoy the titillation of the nerves for a moment, the temporary excitement and exhilaration which come from even vicious pleasures. But what of it all? It is only animal enjoyment. Nothing but regret, disappointment, and disgust follow.
There is within every normal person a strong desire to do something and to be something in the world; and every idler knows that he is violating the fundamental demand of his nature; that he is really cheating himself out of a very sacred prize, the getting of which would mean more to him than everything else in the world. I have talked with idle rich young men who said they knew that it was all wrong for them to refuse to do their part of the world’s work; that it was a mistake for them not to enter into the activities of life and struggle for a prize which the Creator had fitted them to take; but that the paralyzing effect of not being obliged to work had undermined their inclination.
Recently a rich young man was asked why he did not work. “I do not have to,” he said. “Do not have to” has ruined more young men than almost anything else. The fact is, Nature never made any provision for the idle man. Vigorous activity is the law of life; it is the saving grace, the only thing that can keep a human being from retrograding. Activity along the line of one's highest ambition is the normal state of man, and he who tries to evade it pays the penalty in deterioration of faculty, in paralysis of efficiency. Do not flatter yourself that you can be really happy unless you are useful. Happiness and usefulness were born twins. To separate them is fatal.
It is as impossible for a human being to be happy who is habitually idle as it is for a fine chronometer to be normal when not running. The highest happiness is the feeling of well-being which comes to one who is actively employed in doing what he was made to do; carrying out the great life-purpose patterned in his individual bent. The practical fulfilling of the life-purpose is to man what the actual running and keeping time are to the watch. Without action both are meaningless.
There is no tonic like that which comes from doing things worth while. There is no happiness like that which conies from doing our level best every day, everywhere; no satisfaction like that which comes from stamping our superiority, putting our royal trade-mark, upon everything which goes through our hands.
Man was made to do things. Nothing else can take the place of achievement in his life. Real happiness without achievement of some worthy aim is unthinkable. One of the greatest satisfactions in this world is the feeling of enlargement, of growth, of stretching upward and onward. No pleasure can surpass that which comes from the consciousness of feeling one’s horizon of ignorance being pushed farther and farther away—of making headway in the world—of not only getting on, but also of getting up.
Happiness is incompatible with stagnation. A man must feel his expanding power lifting, tugging away at a lofty purpose, or he will miss the joy of living.
The discords, the bickerings, and divorces; the breaking up of rich homes, and the resorting to all sorts of silly devices by many rich people in their pursuit of happiness, prove that it does not dwell within them; that happiness does not abide with low ideals, with selfishness, idleness, and discord. It is a friend of harmony; of truth and beauty; of affection and simplicity.
Multitudes