Then we should study contentment. We should study to be content. We must cultivate the habit of being satisfied with what we have at present, and we should not worry about those things which we do not possess. Worry because of things they did not possess has made countless thousands mourn. Let us enjoy what we have. Let us make the most of what we have. And let us not worry about things which we do not possess. No matter how miserable our own lot may be, there is always some one whose lot is more miserable still. Worry kills more people than work. In fact worry unfits a man for work. The man who has learned the philosophy of being content in whatsoever state he is is the man who is and will be happy. One of the things in this world that pays a hundred-fold is contentment, and there is nothing that casts so much blight and mildew upon life’s fairest flowers as discontent.
Again, it would help us to keep cheerful if we kept steadily engaged in some work of usefulness. Let us go about doing good. Let us go about seeking opportunities of doing good. Doing good makes the heart healthy, and heart-health makes sunshine, happiness and good cheer.
A little thought will convince you, boys and girls, that your own happiness in this world depends very largely on the way other people bear themselves toward you. The looks and tones at your breakfast table, the conduct of your playmates, the faithful or unreliable people that you deal with, what people say to you on the street, the letters you get, the friends or foes you meet—these things make up very much of the pleasure or misery of your day. Turn the thought around, and remember that just so much are you adding to the pleasure or misery of other people’s days. And this is the half of the matter that you can control. Whether any particular day shall bring to you more of happiness or of suffering is largely beyond your power to determine. Whether each day of your life shall give happiness or suffering to others rests with yourself. And there is where the test of character comes. We must be continually sacrificing our wills to the wills of others, bearing without notice sights and sounds that annoy us, setting about this or that task when we would rather be doing something else, persevering in it often when we are very tired of it, keeping company for duty’s sake when it would be a great joy to us to be by ourselves; and then there are all the trifling and outward accidents of life, bodily pain and weakness, it may be, long continued, losing what we value, missing what we desire, deceit, ingratitude and treachery where we least expected them; folly, rashness and willfulness in ourselves. All these little worries which we meet each day may lie as stumbling-blocks across our way, or we may make of them, if we choose, stepping-stones of grace.