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

man or woman who has found his focus of satisfaction within himself during the whole of his youth and early maturity finds it very difficult to face the problems of old age and death with equanimity. This is one of the facts that no neurotic dares to face. Every egoist, moreover, hopes that some extraordinary Providence will look out for the exigencies of his old age. Clinical practice indicates that this hope is unfounded. The only really happy old people are those who have tasted the satisfactions of a good job well done in the past, while they exhibit a lively interest in some avocation as a means of making their time of lessened activity rich and meaningful in the future. The older men grow, the more they realize that it is only by putting the focus of their activities upon some movement or activity greater than their individual ego that they can attain peace and security in old age. This truth is especially applicable to the woman who is inclined to make the important work of raising her children her only profession, only to find that these children, too, mature and grow out of their dependence, leaving their over-solicitous and over-protective mother a mere shadow of a human being without a good reason for living. The necessity for interesting herself in some extra-familial activities should be apparent to every woman who does not consciously desire to raise a brood of neurotic and dependent children for the express purpose of being a martyr to their adult infantilisms at a time when she should be secure in the friendships and activities of her contemporaries. Many women un¬ consciously keep their children infantile because they themselves are afraid to look at a future in which they have no cogent activities either to fill their leisure or to occupy their energies. Growing old gracefully should begin with youth. No one who intends to lead a happy old age should neglect the adventure of books, of music, of dancing and the other arts, and above all, the art of social intercourse. The last of life, as Browning has so well put it, is the goal of