A lights from many Lamps

Part One
Happiness & The Enjoyment of Living....

"Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." 

- ABRAHAM LINCOLN......

Down through the centuries men have sought to explain the meaning and the art of happiness.  Millions upon millions of worked have been written on the subject.

Poets and Priests, Philosophers and Scientists, Teachers, Preachers, and Leaders of every age have sought to work out a simple formula for what Sir Philip Gibbs called "The eternal quest of making" -  a happy and contented life.

For in the end happiness is what al people want, regardless of the many ways they may seek it..

To be happy is the ultimate goal of all ambition, all endeavor, all hopes and plans.

"Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human Existence," declared Aristotle, supreme philosopher of the ancient world.

But what is happiness? Clearly, it means vastly different things to different people. Since earliest times men have sought and found their happiness along amazingly divergent paths - in work, achievement, success, in love and family ties, in the affection for friends, in religion.

There is one point, however, on which philosophers in every age agree: true happiness stems from a quality within ourselves, from a way of thinking of life.

Of all the millions of words written on happiness, this is the oldest and most enduring truth. If the principles of contentment are not within us, no material success, no pleasures or possessions, can make us happy.

 

This philosophy has been expounded by writers and thinkers since civilization began; but never more beautifully and effectively than in Maeterlinck’s famous play, The Blue Bird. Tyltyl and Mytyl, the woodcutter's children, search far and wide for happiness, only to find it on their return home.

("We went so far, and it was here all the time!") It isn't necessary to search for happiness in far places, says Maeterlinck in The Blue Bird.

It is everywhere around you and about you.

The quest for happiness is always in vain unless you can find it within yourself, within your own heart and soul. "Very little is needed to make a happy life," Wrote Marcus Aurelius in his immortal Mediations.

"It is all within yourself, in your way of thinking."

Following are selections from what leading thinkers of all ages, from ancients times to present, have said on the subject of happiness.

 

1. JOHN BURROUGHS.

THE SECRET OF HAPPINESS IS 
SOMETHING TO DO...........

 

        The poet stood at his window and watched an neighbor walk by. 

He walked - not as a man should, in joy and triumph - but with slow step and sagging shoulders, like a man with a great burden on his soul.

John Burroughs knew why. 

The man had no work he loved, nothing to keep him busy and content, to give his days purpose and direction.

"An idle man is a wretched man," he thought, listening to the shrill cacophony of the birds, to the soft whispering of the trees.

Surely no one knew better than he the blessedness of work, of life-giving and life-sustaining work!

Had he not been idle himself once, and one of the most utterly dejected of God's creatures? Life had lost its savor for him, had become empty and stagnant; he couldn't eat or sleep, couldn't think or dream.

Work had saved him.

Good hard work on a farm, with his hands, raking and hoeing, plowing and planting, feeling the good earth between his gingers... feeling his oneness with the universe..

The plow had done its perfect work on him, as on his fields.

The bitterness and boredom had been plowed under, the stagnant pools of discontent and drained off.

The planting and pruning had shaped his life as surely as they had shaped his fruit trees.

For seeing the rivers shine and dimple in the spring, watching the birds arrive and hearing their shrill, excited laughter, looking up from his work and seeing the skies and distant hills bathed in the magic of sudden beauty, he had found renewal and inspiration.

He had found his life's work.

John Burroughs turned from the window, walked slowly to his desk.

Wake-Robin had been the first of a series of books about birds, flowers, and rural scenes that had brought him world-wide recognition. 

But far more important, his poems and essays on out-of-door life had brought him joy and contentment.

If only he could make others realize that happiness was no elusive will-0'-the-wisp, the real happiness was the simplest thing in the world and within reach of all! People all about him were reaching for happiness in hopeless ways, or , like neighbor who had just walked by, were letting their lives empty into stagnant pools.

He must try to make them realize that the secret of happiness was in work, congenial work, something to do. 

He picked up his pen and began to write:

There is a condition or circumstance that has a greater bearing upon the happiness of life than any other.

What is it?..... It is one of the simplest things in the world and with reach of all.

If this secret were something I could put up at auction, what a throng of bidders I should have, and what high ones! only the wise ones can guess what it is.

Some might say it is health, or money, or friends, or  this or that possession, but you may have all these things and not be happy.

You may have fame and power, and not be happy.

I maintain there is on thing more necessary to a happy life than any other, tough health and money and friends and home are all important.

That one thing is-what? 
The sick man will say Health;
 The poor man, wealth; 
The ambitious man, power;
 The scholar, Knowledge; 
The over worked man, rest.

Without the one thing I have in mind, none of these things would long help their possessors to be happy.

We could not long be happy without food or drink or clothes or shelter, but we may have all these things to perfection and still want the prime condition of happiness.

It is often said that a contented mind is the first condition of happiness, but what is the first condition of contented mind? you will be disappointed when I tell you what this all-important thing is-it is so common, so near at hand, and so many people, have so much of it and yet are not happy.

They have too much of it, or else the kind that is not best suited to them.

What is the best thing for a stream? It is to keep moving.

If it stops, it stagnates.

So the best thing for a man is that which keep the currents going-the physical, the moral, and the intellectual currents.

Hence the secret of happiness is-something to do congenial work.

Take away the occupation of all men, and what a wretched world it would be!

Few persons realize how much of their happiness is dependent upon their work, upon the fact that they are kept busy and not left to feed upon themselves.

Happiness comes most to persons who seek her least, and think least about it.

It is not an object to be sought; it is a stat to be induced.

It must follow an not lead.

It must overtake you and not you overtake it.

How important is health to happiness, yet the best promoter of health is something to do.

Blessed is the man who has some congenial work, some occupation in which he can put his heart, and which affords a complete outlet to all the forces there are in him.

@source from A  lights from many Lamps...
original type by A10.