How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.
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“follow through ” of making yourself valuable to the people you have contacted. It is a very good technique to begin with people who are overlooked by the average egoistic men and women we see madly searching for their own advantage in life. It is always valuable to be pleasant to elderly people, to cripples, to shy and timid souls who seem to shrink from social contacts, to children, to wall¬ flowers ”, and to animals. It is tremendously encouraging to any elderly individual if a young man or woman comes up to talk with them when younger, more attractive individuals are in the same gathering. Hints on Social Success Success in the social life lies in the path of the man who can make himself valuable to those who are all too frequently overlooked in the mad rush of the machine age. Being attentive to the overlooked minority is doubly valuable because it gives you the best possible opportunity of immediately proving your social-minded- ness : it not only enriches the timid or overlooked and adds to the store of human happiness, but also immediately gives you the feeling of being indispensable to another’s happiness. And this feeling is the basis of objective self-esteem. I know of a young architect struggling for his first job, who in a spirit of levity, offered to design a kennel in Georgian style for an old lady. The lady was pleased with the idea of having her kennel in harmony with her country home, gave the young architect the commission, and was so satisfied with his work that she later com¬ missioned him to do a large job in the modernization of her town house, which marked the beginning of this architect’s successful career. Similarly, a young doctor who was called into a home to take care of a minor emergency, endeared himself to the family by his solicitude in the care of a sick cat. Subsequently, he became the family physician and was enthusiastically recommended to an important clientele of patients simply