How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.
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wore blinkers. They constrict and restrict their activity
to a very narrow and unimportant alley of conduct. This
gives them a sense of superiority very similar to their
fellow-deserters who have made a kingdom for them¬
selves in some little side-show off the beaten path of human
progress. If this is a man’s purpose, what better traits than
those of snobbery, smugness, traditionalism, self-satis¬
faction, laissez-faire, sanctimoniousness and bigotry could
he choose ? By the simple gesture of making yourself
blind to the world which is moving beside you, you can
attain a smug holiness and satisfaction, and the eminently
satisfying belief that you have mastered all the problems
of the world. This way of approaching life would be an
excellent one were it not for the fact that you get very little
out of life if you do not risk anything. To be sure, the
risk in living a smug, self-satisfied life is not very great,
and those who appreciate security more than the rich
satisfactions of great living, will be found in this camp.
Make-Believe Superiorities
We must never forget that human beings are never
static. While you are choosing your set of character
traits to pursue your goal, your neighbour is choosing
his too. Very often your neighbour, having a slightly
different goal, chooses a different set of tools and seems
to be getting ahead of you. The trick of comparing
yourself to other people is a certain index of the inferiority
complex. The most painful thing to a man or woman
with an inferiority complex is to see someone else getting
ahead with a better technique of life. Now there are two
ways of getting ahead. One is by training yourself for
the objective conquest of difficulties. The other is the
neurotic method of putting yourself ahead subjectively
by deprecating the efforts of others, or enslaving or
fettering them so that they cannot possibly catch up
with you.
If your goal in life is not the objective solution of the
world’s problems, but the attainment of a subjective sense