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Hovers near Us If We Do Not Chase It

Some of our richest blessings are gained by not striving for them directly. This is so true that we accept the blessings without thinking about how we came to get them.

Particularly true is this in the matter of happiness. Everyone wants to be happy, but few know how to secure this blessing.

Most people have the idea that the possession of material things is necessary to happiness and that idea is what keeps architects, automobile makers, jewelers, tailors, hotels, railroads, steamships and golf courses busy.

Do your duty well, have a worth-while ambition, be a dreamer, have an ideal. Keep your duty in mind, be occupied sincerely with your work, keep on the road to your ideal and happiness will cross your path all the while.

Happiness is an elusive prize; it's wary, timid, alert and cannot be caught. Chase it and it escapes your grasp.

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 evenings 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 to him a tale of woe, misery and discontent did unfold.

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, 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 find what comes to the pleasure-chaser, and you will know about "vanity and vexation of spirit."

Do something for somebody. Engage in moves and enterprises that will be a 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.

Paul had trials, setbacks, hardships and hard labors; he had defeats and discouragements and still the record shows he was "always rejoicing."

Paul was a man of Pep. In the dungeon with his feet in stocks he sang songs and rejoiced. Paul was happy, ever and always, not because he strove to get happiness, but because he had dedicated his life to a service to mankind.

The real hero, the real man of fame, the real man of popularity, doesn't arrive through direct quest, for any of these things; the result is incidental.

The real hero forgets self first of all; that is the essential step to greatness.

Washington at Valley Forge had no thought that his acts there would furnish inspiration for a picture that would endure for generations.

Lincoln, the care-worn, tired noble man, in his speech at Gettysburg, never dreamed that speech would stamp him as a master of words and thought, in the hearts of his countrymen. He thought not of self. He was trying to soothe wounds, cheer troubled spirits, and give courage to those who had been so long in shadowland.

Ever has it been that fame, glory, happiness are rewards, given not to those who strive to capture, but to those who strive to free others from their troubles, burdens and problems.

Published by Hunter Service Kansas City, Mo., USA
Copyright 1915 by WM. C. Hunter

Tags: Happiness