Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1904-04-22
DON'T POSTPONE
YOUR ENJOYMENT.

Doubtless every person in Grand
Rapids has a well defined idea that
sometime in the future they are going
to be happy,
The majority CT us go through life
with our eyes fixed on distant goal,
straining every nerve to reach it. On
our way we pass beauties indcscribable
of earth and skies, and opportunities
innumerable to help others over rough
places, to brighten and beautify the
common place life of every day, but
We see them not needless Of all that
does not point direct toward what we
consider the winning post. We finally
arrive at our destination to find
what? We have perhaps gained what
We sought; wealth and it may be fame;
we have satisfied our ambition but at
the cost Of all that sweetens, beauti-
| fies, ennobles and enriches life.
How few of US ever learn to enjoy as
we go along! We see happiness away
| ahead Of US, next year and the year
following. We see it in California or
in some far distant land, but we hardly
ever see it in the present and where
we are. Happiness is always vision
of the future: some other time, in
some other place, when We are b=tter
off, and when little leisure, then we
will rn1u opiov
The high school boy thinks he will
be happy when he enters college. The
freshman is dreaming of the day when
he will be a senior; the senior of the
time when he will be graduated; the
graduate lives only for the hour when
he will 90 into business for himself or
start in his profession: and the young
man who has just entered on an active
career looks forward to the happy time
when he shall have saved enough
money to build himself an humble
cottage or costly mansion. But by
the time he has built his coZy home
he has become so bound by his buSin-
esS or profession, SO absorbed In the
every day routine, that enjoyment
must be pushed still farther ahead,
until he can spare little more time
from his business of office or to the
indefinite season when he shall retire.
The majority of the American men
are like the lions and tigers in men,
ageries, who walk back and forth in
their cages, dreaming of jumbles where
they would be happy if they could only
get out. Men are restless in business,
pacing their store, office or factory,
dreaming bstweeni whiles OF the
gDoriopV Vfuture wheh they shall have
made their millions and be free to
enjoy them. In the meantime, they
thrust from them the little pleasures
and enjoyments that are within their
grasp every day.
There is no doubt that man was in
tended to be happy and contented.
And if we learn the secret of right
thinking, if we try to have perfect
control of our minds and harbor only
such thoughts as will leave bright
sunny pictures on our consciousness we
shall always be happy.
Note the abandon with which a
child gives himself to the joy of life.
There are no IFS or wherefores or
can't'sin hisbright sky: no care-filling
thoughts OF time or money haunts
his vision. He enjoys the passing hour
unshadowed by dreams of the future.
Why should he not when grown older
and presumably wiser do the same?
The average man in pursuit of
coarSer success cuts OF the finer en-
joyment Of friendship and sentiment.
Most of us feel that there is something
of mockery in our lives; that there
must be something radically wrong in
a social scheme sets the mass of
humanity struggling one unit against
an other, each striving to get past this
neighbor or to get something away
from him. We know that God intended
life to be infinitely better, richer and
nobler than this brutal game OF foot
ball which the human race has so far
played. This is not what he planned
for his children. The pushing and
crowding of place, the lust Of power
and wealth, the selfish game Of each
for himself and the devil take the
hindermost has no place in the in
finite plan. The time is coming too,-
some have already realized it, when
each man will find his highest good,
not in taking away something from
his brother but in adding something
to him, when each will find his great-
est pleasure in doing the grea test
amount of good to some one else, and
when in stead of striving for selfalone
each will strive for all. This is the
bugle call of the twentieth century
and each new year is responding to
the call more cordially than the pre-
co1ipu ono