How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.

Some Sources of Unhappiness A great deal of human unhappiness is due to the fact that people are for ever trying to carve wood with tools designed to chisel granite, while others, driven by the spurs of egoistic ambition, attempt to cut marble mono¬ liths out of a handful of clay. Many are unhappy because they are discouraged by their first attempts at self¬ sculpture ; others are unhappy because they have lost sight of their final design in the process of working out details. Because time is an element in human life, there are people unhappy because they have set themselves an impossible task, while others, having chosen too simple a design, finish too soon, and are unhappy because they have nothing more to do. We once saw a young woman polishing her finger-nails at a football match. It was a smashingly dramatic moment. A centre had caught a long forward pass. He stumbled, wavered, regained his feet and was racing for the opposing goal posts. One lone half-back stood between him and victory. Seventy thousand people were on their feet, frantically cheering, half of them pushing one way, half of them pulling the other in fierce identification with that bounding dynamo of muscle and desire. Hardly lifting her eyes from her finger-nails the young woman asked her escort, “ What are all those people shouting for ? ” It is amazing to see how many human beings regard the spectacle of life with the bored indifference of this young woman. They suffer from an acute stricture of their mental horizon. They are unaware of the breathless drama that moves on the stage of the world all about them. They sit in the wings, twiddling their thumbs, while the sublimest tragedy of all time stalks the boards. Others, again, while waiting patiently for Santa Claus, go on suffering civilization instead of enjoying it. Others still defer their lives to some ideal psychological moment when they promise themselves they will begin to live. You, as an individual citizen of this world, cannot be