and getting to know others, This is
not a flight from your feeling of
aloneness, hut an attack upon it, in
order to dissolve it. There is interest
and pleasure, as well as safety, in
numbers. A person acquires strength
and courage {rom contact with others,
but he grows weak and insecure
when he is alone. This fact was
clearly brought out during the great
air raids over Lngland in the last
war. It was found that far fewer
cases of mental shock resulted in the
areas where there was ample provi
sion for large numbers of people to
take shelter together. In areas where
no such provision had been made,
and persons had to stay alone, the
proportion of cases of mental shock
was greatly increased.
It is not wholly true that we
eventually all have to fight our own
battles alone, for all of us fight them
with a power, that, to a large extent,
we have acquired from others. We
are to make the best possible assimi-
lation of that power. It is from our
relationships—not  contacts—w ith
others that we learn to act like hu-
man beings. All that we know, and
almost all that we feel, we have ac-
quired from other human beings.
ORRY?
cu, Ph.D.
College, Philadelphia, Pa., U. 5. 4.
Many of the things we have acquired
in this way are good, others are bad.
We can learn from our relations with
others how to unlearn these bad
things. That should Le one of the
functions of friendship.
Don’t be hostilely aggressive, but
be intelligent, calm, honest, sincere.
A wise man once remarked: “It is
very important to be aggressive, but
fatal to appear so.” Certainly re
{rain from throwing your weignt
around. It does you no good, and
people do not like it. But do go out
and cultivate human relationships.
Tur OrievTar Warensman, June 1048
How can you ever worry when
you know that in whatever you do
you have the active sympathy of
your {riends—when you know that
you have someone to whom you can
unburden yourself, and with whom
you can discuss your problems?
When you have tried hard to achieve
something and failed, your friends
will not blame you. They will praise
vou for having tried and will en
courage vou to try again.
There is at present too much
desire for “contact” and too little
interest in entering into deeper re-
lationships with other human beings.
Our human relationships tend to be
awkward and insincere because we
seldom get on a real footing of
understanding with other people.
This attitude has, for the most part.
been determined by the out-and-out
competitive spirit which pervades
the highly industrialized society in
which we live.
All discussions of human prob.
lems lead to the same conclusion:
namely, that we must learn to co-
operate, not compete, with our fel-
low men. This is not to sav that we
shall not vie with one another to do
our best. A healthy type of competi-
tion which has as its end the advance-
ment of the common good, and not
the vanquishing of one’s “opponent”
and the selfish advancement of one-
self, is good. A competition which
is motivated by the impulse to assist
those with whom one may be com-
peting is the only form of competi-
tion which is ultimately worth while.
In your relationships with other
persons what you derive from them
depends largely upon what vou put
into those relationships. That is.
perhaps, best exemplified in the most
intimate of all human relationships
—marriage. The principal ingre-
dient of successful marriage is not
so much what you get out of it, as
what vou put into it. The recognition
of this is probably what caused
Gustave Flaubert to remark that
marriage is the best school for a
man’s character that has ever been
devised. Indeed, a man can have no
creater {riend than his wife. A wife
zenerally knows her hushand better
than he knows himself. That is why
some men resent their wives. What
a childish attitude that is! Instead of
being grateful for someone who
knows him so well, and making use
of the critical, yet sympathetic,
understanding of his wife, such a
man throws away the greatest of all
his opportunitics for helping him-
self. very man should be able to
share his troubles with his wife, and
with her assistance arrive at some
solution of them.
Concerning friendship, it was
written more than two thousand
years ago in an old Sanskrit work:
They taste the best of bliss, are good,
And find life's truest ends,
Who, glad and gladdening. rejoice
In love, with loving friends.
Also:
The days when meetings do not fail
With wise and good
Are lovely clearings on the trail
Through life's wildwood.
Get into the habit of walking in
those lovely clearings through life's
wildwood. Cultivate as your friends,
persons whom you can respect and
like, from whom you can learn to be
more happy and more wise. The ex-
perience of such friendships will in
itself work a great reduction in
vour inclination to worry.
Go out and make new {riends.
Cultivate your old ones. See more
of people and take more of an in.
terest in what they are doing. Don’t
turn in on vourself. and torment
yourself by so doing. There is life to
live, work to be done. joy to take
in nature and in the pood works of
men. Worry never helped anyone to
do any of these things. There are a
good many bad and ineflicient things
which men have done. Your active
help is needed in the job of putting
these things right. Put some of the
energy that vou formerly used to
put into worrying, into this task.
Find something to do which you
can do well. and do it. There is
nothing better for you morale. And
remember: Keep smiling. keep
cheerful. he friendly
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