How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.
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away thousands of pounds in an evening in the hopeless search for a thrill, when thrills entirely unknown and undreamed of could be found at their finger-tips if they were to invest the slightest effort in improving the conditions of the sick and hopeless, or if they were to devote themselves to the task of increasing our knowledge r i i j r & ot the world or science or art. One of my patients who suffered a depression as a result of her inability to experience another thrill was given the task of spending the two thousand pounds she usually gambled away in a season at Monte Carlo in providing recreational facilities for a group of working girls, many of whom were delinquent wards of a certain charitable organization. The initial work opened her eyes to a host of coincident social problems, and, at the present time, this good woman spends eight hours a day, five days a week, administering funds and actively participating in the communal activities of these girls. Her depression has disappeared, A less common strategy of attack is that in which the focus of life’s activities is on the social sector, with various degrees of frustration and non-cooperation on the occupational and sexual fronts.- In this strategy, social contacts and social conventions are elevated into a major interest in life. Form is every¬ thing. Snobbery and social prestige are the goals ; elegance and manners the chief desiderata. Nothing else matters. One must be graceful and gracious. Let others soil their hands with work. Sex is possible only when all the social amenities have been complied with. It is more important that the bridesmaids at a wedding should be correctly gowned, the wedding pictures published in the “ correct” papers, than that the bride and groom should be prepared for marriage and capable of making a normal adjustment to one another. Readers who have followed our philosophic approach to the problems of life will see that a good attitude toward work and toward sex is impossible when there is too much emphasis on the purely social side of life. This type of