THE SOURCES OF HAPPINESS.

Evening Star, Issue 19760, 10 January 1928, Page 6

THE SOURCES OF HAPPINESS.

Times and seasons influence our thoughts. \Ye like to imagine that our thoughts are greater than circumstances. At times they are. An artist, for example, can see beauty in a puddle, and a musician can discover harmony in a thunderclap, while even the most prosaic of us can at times think quite poetically about common things. \et it is undoubtedly true that special seasons and circumstances inspire special trains of noble impulse. Probably all of us are just now conscious of that, for the New Year washes rise easily to the lips as friend greets Iriend. “ A Happy New Year!” But what is it, after all, that our Words express? Too often we use such time-honored phrases glibly with scarcely a thought as to

their deeper reality. Far behind us lies the wisdom of sage and saint to give our wish its meaning. Happiness is a matter of inner experience, and wo too o|ten forget that it cannot be realised through the channels of sensual delight. When one has gratified every sensual desire one is probably far more unhappy than before. No greater mistake ever was made than to seek to be happy by piling up gold until one should have the wealth of Crcosus, or by draining goblets of liquor. It is not what we do for diversion, but what we are that really matters. The whole craze for sensual diversion is misguided. There must come an end to it some time, for there is a limit to the degree of diversion of which any one person is capable. At the last we have to learn to live with our own selves, and if this lesson is not learned earlier in life it becomes harder to learn later. Sensual excitement and gratification generally end in' nausea, as Colton reminds us. “ Anthony sought for happiness in love, Brutus in glory, Ctesar in dominion; the first found disgrace, the second disgust, the last ingratitude, and each destruction.” Happiness of that kind destroys itself. As a matter of fact happiness is never outside of ns. It does not belong to the multitude or degree of our possessions. It lies in the way we actually possess them. Some may have very little and be compelled to the simplest of lives, yet so kindly uro the compensations of life that their hearts may overflow with perennial gladness. To be happy wo have no need of stimulants at all. “The man who finds no joy in his home, no delight in friendship, no happiness in conversation, the man to whom books bring no recreation and Nature no escape from self, who finds no healing in the open air and the sunshine, is starving'fn-the midst of plenty,” for

If happiness have not its seat Within the human breast, Man may bo great or rich or wise; lie never can be blest.

That happiness is an experience rather than an acquirement implies that it is not to bo found by direct search. This is the mistake of all Hedonists to whom pleasure is the central object of desire. ./Emotional experiences are of all things the most elusive when we definitely plan to produce them. The more we plan for them the more unreal do they appear. A man with an emotion of love had better plan the ways and means of expressing it rather than those by which it is to be intensified. Those who complain that they have no friends, none who care for them, are most frequently those who have made friendship a thing to be sought for its own sake, and have not cared how to be friendly towards others. Always you have to love to find love. The same remarks are true also of happiness. Tho happiest folk are not those whose one question is; “How can Ibe happy?” Strangely enough happy people are those who have forgotten altogether about their own happiness and have become engrossed in the effort to make others happy. By the strange irony of life happiness blesses our own life when we have fulfilled our most solemn duties and have ministered to the cares of those around. At the end of the most tiresome and toilsome day we have ever spent brightening other hearts a real peace will steal into our own, perhaps our very dreams being beautified by the calmness of joy that has filled ns. Neglect of the common loyalties of life can have but one issue. It inevitably mars our joy. It is a serious perversion to picture duty as a stern taskmistress, for, as IstH'd Avebury reminds us; “She is rather a kind and sympathetic mother, over ready to shelter us from the cares and anxieties of this world and to guide us in the paths of peace.” There never has been a time when the selfish life was the happy one. To bo selfish is to become disliked, and in consequence to lose the delight of real friendships. For the most part a selfish life becomes a dull life. To conplain that doing right imposes stern restraints is to sec only one side of the matter, for ultimately the severity of self-control gives place to a sense of power and of poise. Thus one attains the true dignity and happiness of which our life is capable. On the other hand, it is not hard to show that selfishness and neglect of the honorable responsibilities which fall upon ns result at the last in the prison of boredom, from which it is hard to escape. In an ancient Christmas legend there were other three wise men who also had seen the Star of Bethlehem. So engrossed wore they in gazing up at it and in puzzling over its moaning that they forgot tho needs of their camp and the hunger of the steeds. Yet while they gazed the vision faded. With dismay they pored over the ancient lore and scanned tho heavens in vain. No vision rewarded their anxious quest. Then one remembered his neglected beast, and, leaving his companions, betook himself to finding pasture and water. As the animal stooped to drink the seer saw beyond it a luminous circle in the centre of tho pool and within it, flashing as from a natural mirror, ho saw again the glory of tho star. It is an Eastern way of reminding us that most spiritual delights issue as by-pro-ducts when wo have faithfully fulfilled the common duties of the day. To do right, to leave no task undone, to soothe and soften the cares of others, to lift our own measure of the burdens of life, to forget self utterly in one’s thoughtfulness of others—the.se are milestones on tho way to lasting joy.