A Jolly by Josh | Page 4

we can do with them, and perhaps see what stuff this luck that people talk about is made of.
Let us see where we now stand. We have found that it is the attitude toward your income, and the scale of living your income permits, that must be regulated; that your desires, if all were granted, will soon grow to a point far out of reach of your purse, no matter how rich you get; and, therefore, that the intellectual problem is before us of picking out a scale of living somewhere well within your present income and endeavoring to attain an attitude of mind toward living on that scale which will make you happy rather than discontented.
I know that you are thinking that I have forgotten the personal equation, that I am arguing as if all people were of the same temperament, forgetting that under given conditions one person would be happy and another would not, and that you, with your varied interests and contented disposition, would always find things to make you happy, even if you had to give up many of the luxuries which you now enjoy. This is true, but you must please note that I have not intimated that you couldn't; and, in fact, the point of what I say rests on the assumption that you could. Moreover, in regard to other people, you will notice that this letter is not addressed to them; and, if any of them should happen to see it, they can put on the garment if it fits, or they can leave it alone,--it is all one to me.
But how can we bring this about? how tell what things you have been used to keep and what to give up? how keen a desire it is well to quell, and which ones? To reach this point, it is necessary to digress again in order to find the element of the magic touchstone which will tell us whether the thing we are looking at is made of gold or some baser metal.
You must first have a look at our objective points, and try to analyze these a little bit. Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness. These are somewhat intermingled, as we consider liberty an essence of happiness. We also want health, and all that conduces thereto, particularly cleanliness and exercise. We want a fair amount of amusement and a good amount of work. We want the sense of being useful and the sense of being respected. This people will accord us if we are striving to accomplish some of the innumerable things which people want to have done. There is, of course, a higher field for man's energy,--that of striving for things which mankind ought to want for and doesn't; the position of the martyr or reformer, who works for the welfare of the people and receives ill-treatment for it, like Christ. But, while we all of us hope we would not be found wanting, were the demand made, we cannot help joining with Kipling in the wish "which I 'ope it won't 'appen to me."
Accordingly, while I am not blind to disagreeable but necessary possibilities, you will see that, if I digress to satisfy each one of them, I shall never reach the point, which no doubt in your mind by this time is the end; and so you must not pick flaws if I make statements which cover the probable, but not all the possible, contingencies.
We have found, then, that we want employment which will somehow add to the welfare of the human race; and is not this well worth doing? If you make something of that nature your object, and keep it fully before your mind, how much better off you will be than if you have continually in mind your own amusement, your own comfort! If you have your amusement as your life object, you will soon become a bored man, whom nothing will amuse. If you have comfort, you will be the discontented man who is never comfortable; for you soon fix in your mind the ideal combination of temperature, garment, palate, belly, and entertainment, and, seldom being able to get them all at once, you will seldom quite reach your ideal.
You might remark that I have made the statement that employment in something useful is the element of happiness; but I have not proved it by reasoning, nor have I led up to it by any line of argument. Let it rest at that. I shall let your intelligence and experience supply the proof that a definite object of employment with something in view of interest and benefit to the human race is, if not an essence of happiness, perhaps the easiest way to obtain the elements of happiness; namely, an object for yourself, a sense