How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.
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CHAPTER TWELVE
Of Techniques The Triumph of Maturity
The Technique of Empathy—The Dynamics of Friendship—How to
Start a Friendship—Hints on Social Success-—The Fine Art of Making
Presents—How to Widen Your Social Horizons—The Vital Need
for Hobbies—“ Either ... or ” v. “ Both ... and ’’—Some
Useful Flints on Controversy—Of Deferred Living—-How to Grow
Old Gracefully-—The Uses of Leisure and Adversity—L’envoi.
TN the foregoing chapters it has been my purpose to
outline the fine art of creative self-sculpture which
leads to human happiness. I have sketched, briefly,
not only the problems which beset each human being
who faces the task of taking the rough clay of his human
heritage and making a meaningful design of his life,
but also the opportunities that present themselves for the
compensation of the difficulties. I have, moreover,
attempted to explain how fear and ignorance, originating
in early childhood misconceptions of life and its meanings,
divert many a valuable human being from the path of
happiness, and I have mapped some of the pathways of
unhappy Jiving. Finally, I have explained some of the
individual goals of living, some of the tools and techniques
of creative self-sculpture, and described possible sources
of failure and disappointment.
We have not blinded ourselves to the difficulties that
face every human being, but, despite the existence of
countless obstacles in the external world, we have
discovered that the vital elasticity of the human body and
the human spirit is capable of transmuting these obstacles
into assets. It follows, therefore, that much of the
unhappiness in the world is preventable, and the way to
the creation of a full, vital, and meaningful life lies open to
all who know and understand themselves, to those who