Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1915-10-01
IS SELF SACRIFICE
ALWAYS VIRTUE?
1t Is Robbing Others of Their
Personality and Character to
Be Doing and Planning For
Them at All Times.

NM i'll one family who are selfish
look for the unselfsh mem
Der. You will always find
him or her industriously monopolizing
all the self sacrifice and unselfishness
in that family.
Maybe it is a mother who wears her
life out waiting ON her family, giving
up everything that they may have more
than is their due, making it such a
constant habit that, no matter what
their natural impulses toward unself-
ishness were, they have gradually lost
them, so accustomed have they all be-
come to mothers constant care and
service. If one or another seeks to
help to tighten her load or add to her
pleasure she will not allow 1t.
That mother is selfish! She is mo
%nopolizing every opportunity for self
sacrifice in that family; she is delib-
erately depriving the other members
Of their chance to give IA another
service or pleasure; she is cheating
them of their right to cultivate unself-
ishness.
OF course it is not always true that
one extremely unselfsh person can
spoil a whole family, but she or he will
usually spoil most Of them. Sometimes
it is a father that plods on year after
year, denying himself comforts and
pleasures that he may lavish them on
his loved ones.
Too often such conduct is accepted
as a matter of CONSEQUENTLY a ia
theirs duty to his family. He is wrong,
too, because he should allow them to
share his cares and responsibilities for
their own good. He is depriving them
of their highest development through
sacrifice and consideration, and he is
depriying himself of the joy of living
unhampered by deadening cares.
While self sacrifice is one of the
noblest virtues and the keynote of
every religion. it can actually work
harm by overindulgence. Most people
have an idea that it is only faults or
vices which can be carried to excess,
but it is quite possible to turn any vir-
tue into harm by OVERRIDING 1t.
And you countless mt who are
spending your strength and your time
and your money to help some inc OF
one that you love-are you really
doing that, or are you actually casting
the pearls of your self denial before
the swine of their careless greed?
Is it bettering that son to work you
fingers to the bone to send him through
ao11n0o nhf10 ho fol-nC ~ nc IN rnof@Or
of course, and complains because he
can't have a good time like the otheI
fellows? No; you are cheating him OF
his best manhood and wasting your
life in doing it. Your intention is good,
but its execution is very i'll considered.
You are carrying your unselfishness to
excess and making him more and
more selfish. Better than such blind
and unreasoning self abnegation are a
clear view, a temperate judgment, a
cultivated sense of proportion. to save
you from a useless self denial. 1t is
a fault of M in general that they
give from the heart rather than from
the head. but the greatest good and
the highest service are rendered by a
judicious mingling of wise judgment
and warm human sympathy.
Or if you are jogging thoughtlessly
along, getting all you can out Of life
and never seriously considering that
you might tighten the load of some
one whose shoulders are overburdened
or bring a little pleasure into some
gray and dreary life. stop a little while
and think. You may argue that your
easy going, good natured way is not
doing any harm. You pass this way
only once. Is it only for your own en-
joyment? Without l~essening that one
iota. can you not share your good
things with some one else? Strength
en- your moral fiber by considering
thoughtfully the serious problems of
humanity today and make some sin
cere and well directed effort toward
their solution.