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

these children, grown up physically, must still be spoon¬ fed and supported by society. Thus does the cult of the family improve each shining hour, and thus does vanity, the product of the family-cult and dependence, and irresponsibility, and protracted mental infantilism, furnish rich soil and fertile opportunities for the mushroom-like growth of the social side-shows. Ehe Evasion of Work An ideal solution of the vocational problem includes a major interest in some socially useful task, complemented by an avocation which gives us a sense of satisfaction for our individually felt inferiorities, or enables us to elaborate some aspect of the creative urge which is the possession of all of us because we are human beings. It includes only work which is of ultimate value to the social group. The happiest mortal is he whose life-work is a combina¬ tion of occupation and avocation. Such a profession gives him not only a sense of successful compensation for his own feelings of inferiority, but vouchsafes him the approval of his fellow-men. Variations from this ideal state are many and devious, because the correct solution of the work problem demands a considerable mental maturity, a great degree of social responsibility, inde¬ pendence of thought and action, and an optimistic philosophy of life. Whatever the immediate causes, and whatever the deeper unconscious causes for a retreat from the task of work in any individual case, the forms of evasion fall into a few simple patterns. If you want to run away from work, substituting your private logic for common sense, you can do it very easily by being very busy at something else, usually something quite useless, which seems to give a subjective sense of importance, occupation, and a ready excuse for not being at work in productive activities. One of the best ways to avoid work is to announce that you have not found the “ right ” job. You try one job after another, finding difficulties and disappointments in each, until you are so old, and have tried so many jobs,