How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.

happy if you do not know why your neighbour is neurotic, why the stockbroker's daughter steals trinkets from Woolworth’s, why your niece has temper tantrums. And you, as an individual, cannot be happy unless you are interested in the why and wherefore of college suicides, prostitution, homosexuality, racketeering, war, prohibition, child labour, or religious persecution. Finally, you cannot be happy unless you know why you want to be a millionaire, why you like to be the first off the train, why you procrastinate, why you hate responsi¬ bilities, why you are always so over-punctual for appoint¬ ments, why you cannot sleep at night, and why you are afraid of growing old. Not to answer these questions is to limit your mental horizons to an arc so narrow as to be inconsistent with human happiness. Much of our unhappiness is directly due to discourage¬ ment, and most human discouragement is due to ignorance. Just as ignorance of the law is no valid excuse in committing a crime, so ignorance of life can no longer be considered an excuse for unhappiness. The cultiva¬ tion of awareness and interest in all that concerns humanity, and the development of your sensitivity to new stimuli is the first step in the fine art of being a complete human being. Discouragement is the common denominator of all unhappy lives. Unfortunately, dis¬ couragement and ignorance stalk us in our youth, when it would be most advantageous to be wise and courageous. We begin our self-sculpture at a time when our critical faculties and our physical powers are at their lowest level. The ideal picture which we use as a design is distorted by false values. We grow, we learn, we become more capable, but the false ideal remains fixed as a pattern in our unconscious life, just as our technique of attaining that ideal is also fixed. Both our goal and our technique may be completely out of harmony with reality. We are unhappy. We redouble our efforts, still in the old false patterns, and still with the old false goals before us. Unhappiness is heaped on unhappiness, and false ideals and poor craftsmanship follow each