Making Life Worth While

CHAPTER I. Little Grains of Sand

LITTLE GRAINS OF SAND

Holding down a seat in the rocking chair fleet out on the shady piazza is most certainly not making the most out of life.

We all remember the line--“If wishes were fishes we’d have some fried.” That is the answer to those who rock and dream, and hope for something to turn up instead of turning up something on their own account.

Of course, there is a time for everything, even the stealthy, creeping rocking chair--and that’s about bedtime. In the estimation of an eminent neurologist there is no crime against nature in the home that cannot be traced to this monstrous thief of time, which, while apparently screeching and groaning under its load, is, in reality, shouting with joy at the job it is putting up on its occupant.

Taking the most out of life is the proper label for this old squeaker--breeder of idle contentment, day-dreams, inertia. Like everything else that saps the energy from mind and body, it counts its victims by the score, and throws them up on the sands of time.

Speaking of sand may serve to remind the reader of a well-known poem handed down from Grandmother days, which holds a lot of precious wisdom--probably more than any poem of its length--its breadth and depth being equal to the world in which we live. In childhood days this poem took my fancy, being short, to the point, and easy to remember. I was ready to recite it immediately and automatically upon request. I had no thought then as to its meaning, but as the years rolled by it tagged along in memory until now I find in it a sort of statement of fact upon which to build my theory of making life worth while. Here it is:

Little drops of water, Little grains of sand, Maketh the mighty ocean And a pleasant land.

To those who adopt the idea of finding out just why little drops of water and little grains of sand accomplish so much, will come the greatest reward in the way of mental satisfaction--and, meanwhile, they’ll keep busy.

There is unbounded happiness in the pursuit of knowledge; a wonderful satisfaction in building up one’s treasure house of information. It’s all so easy, requiring nothing more than a healthy, enquiring mind--and a zest for the sport.

Zest is a big word. It has to do with get up and git, which has been most appropriately boiled down into the word pep. Lazy people, mentally or bodily, seldom get anywhere. What they do get is either accidental or by absorption--if by the latter process, more likely through the pores than the brain. No use to talk to them about making life worth while.

The greatest of human possessions are a well-trained mind, a body to match, and a love of achievement, without which a man is old before his time. After that comes energy--the great propeller! What the brain directs the body will carry out--if the propeller is working. No hesitation--when the will commands the body acts. They synchronize--they are attuned, harmonious, fraternal, so to speak. And to hitch them together is just as easy as getting wet by standing bareheaded in the rain.

There is no intention of littering up this chapter with ways and means of putting one’s upper story in fine working order--or the physical structure below. That is first-reader information. If we treat ourselves right, the brain will behave and the body will follow suit. Activity, mental and physical, is the meat in the cocoanut. Seeking knowledge leads along the sunlit paths of life where happiness abounds. The alternative is mental shiftlessness, leading from nowhere to nothing at all.

Cain killed Abel because, undoubtedly, of the shiftless life he led. Indolence and ignorance being the order of his day, he lacked the stamina with which to control his mind. His physical forces merely acted in consonance with his rage at Abel’s popularity. Cupidity led him on, but if Cain hadn’t lost his head through lack of will to control himself the example of murder might never have been set before mankind.

Centuries have come and gone and still the passion to kill continues upon the face of the earth. To stop it is but a matter of correcting human thought through physical and mental training so that those notions which interfere with a normal, healthy brain tendency, will cease to exist. This done, the degenerate born of indolence somewhere along the line, will disappear from the face of the earth in jig time.

New intellectual forces will do the trick; forces built up from healthy, right thinking, energetic investigation, and consequent acquisition of knowledge.

How the world will wag a few years hence depends upon Mothers and Fathers of today. As great trials are strengthening to character, the prospect seems bright.

CHAPTER II. As the Twig Is Bent

AS THE TWIG IS BENT

Temperament looms large in the game of life, and, like all other human brain tendencies, is subject to regulation through the exercise of ordinary horse sense. We often hear one person speak of another’s temperamental qualities in the light of an incurable disease, and more than likely in an apologetic way. A faulty tendency is usually laid at the door of a doughty grandsire on one or both sides of the house and left there as a piece of ordinary table gossip to be resumed any old time without notice.

We’ve all heard someone dispose of another with quick dispatch by the casual remark, “He’s temperamental.” It all depends upon the inflection of the speaker’s voice whether his words are intended as a knockout blow or an apology in behalf of the culprit. But any time you want to pursue the subject you’ll hear about some obdurate old ancestor who passed the buck on to his posterity.

While we most assuredly do inherit various mental attitudes from our ancestors, there’s nothing we cannot get rid of if we resolve to do so. There is nothing fatal about preconceived notions handed down to us. Mental culture through education and association is the royal road. If, through ignorance, or narrow-mindedness, one should prefer to hang on to certain personal or mental crudities just for the sake of posing as a “chip off of the old block,” then let the punishment fit the crime.

Temperament plays a big part in making life worth while and is more largely due to the time in which we live and with whom we associate than to inheritance. It is the physical department that is really handed down to us--the blood in our veins rather than the dents on our brains. To be subject to scrofula from infancy is no fault of our own, but to continue an eccentricity under the claim of inherited temperament is excusable only upon the score of ignorance.

People do inherit brain tendencies, but they are all subject to control through the will to do or don’t, as the case may be. Supposing grandfather used to swear like a trooper--and he probably did--the habit was temperamental to the extent of being in tune with the times in which he lived. But what grandson of to-day would think of claiming exemption by reason of inherited temperament if addicted to the same vulgar habit? On the other hand, if we are born with rheumatic tendencies we may expect to fight with them all our lives. One is a brain tendency, subject to control; the other is a blood-inheritance that we may never correct.

Personal habits of thought or action are temperamental according to the avidity with which we cling to them. George Ade has said that a man might be born with a hair lip or a club foot, but whiskers were his own fault. Thus we were handed the best possible line of demarcation between the inherited tendency and the personal temperament. So, if we were of the temperament to wear a beard because our great grandfather wore one we could, if the notion struck us, take it to the barber and have it cut away. Just so we may get out from any other temperamental habit, or thought, or action, through the very simple process of becoming masters of our own minds. Grandfather may hand us a line of tainted blood that we can’t manage, but temperament is our own to manage as we will.

Control over one’s temperament is positively necessary in making life worth while. If we are bent on securing full happiness for having lived, we are bound to contribute our share toward an ultimate world sanity in which the word temperament may not serve to cloak mental deficiency. College life takes the kink out of the untrained mind and makes it behave normally. It makes no allowance for the accentuated temperament. Fool notions brought along from the dear old home town are soon sifted into the chaff barrel and common sense comes into its own.

CHAPTER III. The New Order of Living

THE NEW ORDER OF LIVING

We’re never old until we think we are--this I say, not as a sop to those beyond the half-way station, but as a conclusion after some years of observation and association with men.

Continue reading Making Life Worth While free in the Wunder reader →