The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-07-28
Dorothy Dir Says
Dividends on Life.
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer


proposition and we get out of the
game just what we put into it.
! If we go at it with enthusiasm,
energy and interest it pays 100 per
cent dividend, but if we go at it
slacky, listlessly, half heartedly, it
bankrupts US. Which explains why
some people are happy and successful
while others are miserable failures
In reality we all have. pretty much
the same raw materials out of which
to build our destiny. Most of us meet
! about the same kind of people Most
of us get married. Most of us have
children. Most of us must work for
our daily bread, and whether out OF
| these conditions of existence we ex-
tract joy or sorrow depends not upon
Some unscrutable fate, but upon our
selves.
Take friendship, for instance. We
are always hearing people complain
| that they have no friends, that no one
cares for them, and that the world is
a selfish place where there is no such
| thing as disinterested affection. Such
! a wall is an indictment OF the lndl-
! vidual who utters it and not OF the
| balance of>humanity. Such a one is
getting out of the game just what he.
| puts into it.
When people tell you that they
| have no friends it is proof positive
that they are not friendly themselves.
whether they live or die, it is because
in all their miserable, selfish, self
centered lives they have never done
anything to bind another's heart to
them. They have never gone to a
man in financial trouble and offered
him enough money to tide him over
a hard place. They have never sent
a load of coal to a poor widow, or
paid her rent They have never
given a struggling boy or a girl a
hand UP the ladder, or taken a child
to a circus Why should anyone love
them?
On the contrary, you never see an
Individual who has been generous and
sympathetic and helpful, and who has
let no opportunity pass to show his
or her interest and affection in his or
her fellow creatures who lacks Tor
| friends. The secret of popularity is
no secret at ALL 1t is just taking out
of the game what you put into it. Ii
you want to be loved you must make
yourself loveable. If you want to
bind people to you, you can do 1t with
strings of kindly deeds. The magnet
that draws all other hearts to us con-
sists IN having a great big human
heart ourselves.
Whether we get happiness or mis-
cry out of. marriage depends also en-
tirely or our own attitude towards
it, Nobody but a fool expects mar
rage to be nothing but a romantic
J dream that is one long thrill of bliss.
The sensible recognize that no two
! people can live together without hav-
ing to make thousand sacrifices and
: adjustments to each other, and that
they are inevitably deprived of much
of the liberty that a single person en-
joys.
| There is no husband who docs not
! have his times and seasons of crouch
| ing There is no wife who upon
occasion does not act more like a silly
| and hysterical hen than pin feather
ed angel. There is no married couple
that does not find that marriage is
more or less of a failure, and there is
no married couple that cOulL not
make marriage more or less of a sue
cess.
They get out of it what they put
into it. The man who consciously
determines to build up a happy and
successful home of which he makes
himself the inspiring head instead
of the tyrannical despot; who in
terested in all the little details Of
| furnishing and adjoining his living
place; who loves his wife and makes
of her his most cherished chum and
companion finds that domesticity is
a gilt edged investment.
So does the woman who determines
| to be real help mate to her hus-
band; who sees in cooking and wash
ing and ironing not a sordid slavery
to little things but a high calling to
the noblest career that any woman
can espouse, and who counts every
sacrifice sweet that she makes for
the sake of the man who is dearer
than her own comfort and luxury to
her.
No outside conditions can make
matrimony a happy estate. Money
beyond enough to provide for the
bare necessities of existence has
nothing to do with it. There are
quarrels and chickering's in palaces,
and peace and contentment in novels
n Of Eoy v-r~frn III.
gatory or paradise depends abso-
lutely upon what man and woman
put into it. That they get out of it
And the same thing may be said
about parenthood. No one can deny
that children are a great care, a great
expense. and great responsibility,
and that they often are ungrateful
and unappreciative of the sacrifices
their father and mothers have made
for them.
But it pays to raise children, or it
, doesn't pay, according to the way
you do it. If a man never shows his
children any affection, if he is hard
and stern with them so that they
trembie at his step and never -hink
. of him in any other way than as a
jailer they mean to escape from as
soon as they are old enough; or, if he
is too much absorbed in business to
even get acquainted with them, then
parenthood is a losing investment
, for him.
I He gets nothing out of it but the
sacrifices he has had to make and the
work he has to do to support his
| children, because that is all that he
, has ever put into fatherhood But if
he has been a loving and affectionate
. father, who has chummeG with his
children and whom they kavc adored.
: then he has collected the dividends of
millionaire on parenthood every
time little arm has slid around his
. neck, and he will go on collecting it
to the end of his days in the knowl-
edge that he has sons and daughters
who consider it their greatest privi-
lege to minister to him.
I Finally, we get out of our work
| just what we put into it. / asked a
most successful man once what occu-
| nation he would advise q vo11ne ma I,