How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.
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generous, unafraid, because these are the best tools to
gain the goal of human happiness. The thief, never
having been initiated into the fellowship of mankind,
considers every man his born enemy. He believes that
the world owes him a living, and that those who have
more worldly goods than he, possess them by virtue of
undue discrimination in their favour. He develops the
traits of stealth, treachery, dishonesty, false honour,
slyness, and cruelty not because he was born with these
traits, but because these are the best tools of thievery.
It is impossible to evaluate a character by a single trait,
just as it is impossible to know a melody when you know
but a single note. As in every art, and as in mathematics,
you must have several points to establish a curve or a
design.
If James, aged six, is a little destructive devil at home,
and neat and orderly in school, it is not a paradoxical
contradiction, nor yet evidence of the unpredictability of
human traits. It means that James gains his end, to be
the centre of attention, by being destructive at home,
whereas in his classroom, where no nonsense is tolerated,
he chooses a different tool.
When two individuals exhibit the same trait, that trait
usually signifies two entirely different tools. Eloise,
aged 8, and Marjorie, aged 9, are both very timid.
Eloise is timid because she has been a spoiled, only child,
and has never learned to make contacts with the world.
Her timidity represents a strengthening of the bond
between her and her mother. Eloise’s timidity enslaves
her mother. Marjorie, on the contrary, has very good
contacts with the world, but she has been teased and
ridiculed so often by her three elder brothers, that she
fears to make a step lest she arouse their jibes. Her
timidity represents a defence mechanism of a very
different sort.
12. Happiness is the attribute 0/ being completely and
successfully human. This means that every individual who
works out his private pattern from his situation of
“ minus ” to a position of “ plus ” in terms of socially