Thursday, April 30, 2020

Some pretty good questions................


     What about the grocery boy, the newspaper vendor, the chap at the corner who polishes your shoes?  These people are human—bursting with troubles, and dreams, and private ambitions.  They are also bursting with the chance to share them with someone.  But do you ever let them?  Do you ever show an eager, honest interest in them or their lives?  That's the sort of thing I mean.  You don't have to become a Florence Nightingale or a social reformer to help improve the world—your own private world; you can start tomorrow morning with the people you meet!
     What's in it for you?  Much greater happiness!  Greater satisfaction, and pride in yourself!  Aristotle called this kind of attitude "enlightened selfishness."  Zoroaster said, "Doing good to others is not a duty.  It is a joy, for it increases your own health and happiness."  And Benjamin Franklin summed it up very simply—"When you are good to others," said Franklin, "you are best to yourself."

-Dale Carnegie, from my father's autographed 1948 edition of the book, How To Stop Worrying And Start Living

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