The Ypsilanti daily press. (Ypsilanti, Mich.) 1928-1962, 1944-09-04

only ana Inen only through
his column.
remarked the other evening, "but
one thing this country needs is for
the inhabitants to realize how
happy they are.
IF you have any idea that they
do realize it, you must know an
entirely different kind and set Of
people than my patients, because
that realization has not perme-
ated to them.
Modern people are happy in
the sense that they are not mis-
cradle, but they do not often
enough face the acute and clear
realization of their happiness.
They do not pause and let their
happiness surge over them. q
Every Day Things
an the first place, they take
too many things for granted. And,
in the second place, they let too
many ueIdllS ndrdSS Jnem.
THE every day sources of hap
piness we take for granted make
up pitiful waste. Here the poet,
the man of art, the temperamental
one, has the tage of us. l
saw musician of my acquaint-
ance the other day standing stock
still in the street looking at the
advertising display on billboard.
All he could say when braced him
was-Isn't that perfectly beauti-
full ?'-over and over again. And
it was, when you stopped to look
Mt it, though had passed it twice
q day with no more thought than
oh! Just another sign!' We
take for granted all the genius
and beauty that the advertisers
spread before US daily.
"a citizen of Princeton told me
that when Einstein came there to
live, he used to walk every day,
fascinated, through the FIVE and
ten cent store, stopping and gaz-
ing long in sheer happiness at the
counters covered with their wares.
The modern world spreads before
us a free show and we accept it
dumbly, with less appreciation
than the denizen Of the middle
ages did his drab surroundings.
Do you remember when you first
visited a new city-New York,
London, Paris-how for a week
the mere sight Of the streets Ak
allied you? Or the first days OF
your vacation-the river, the sea-
shore-did the same thing. Then
you got used to it. We have been
born kings in fairyland and We
have all abdicated
Willing Happiness
~The only form of psychother-
apy / ever practiced on my pa.
tients was to teach them to will
happiness. Every doctor has to
have some kind of psychotherapy
whether it is used by him con-
sciously or unconsciously. Some
give vitamins: ! taught them to
will happiness to themselves. 1t
cured many case of chronic APP
pendicitis and endocrine disorder,
can tell you. You just make them
sit still and think a while of all
their blessings, thrust the trou-
bles aside, and by will power make
a surge of happiness fill their
minds.
1T sounds trite and pollyanna-
ish, but it has foundations. The
trouble is we let details swamp
our happiness. / found my wife,
poor wretch, who has every rea-
son to be happy, running herself
into a gloom the other day be-
cause something hadn't come back
from the cleaners. know old guys
sitting around listening to their
arteries hardening. They are
afraid one of them will get so
hard the blood won't 20 through.
1t hasn't happened to them yet,
but that doesn't stop them worry
ing.
Being on the shady side Of sew
enty | am grateful l still have
my hearing and my eyesight.
That is enough for me to obey the
dear old canticle Lift up your
bearts'n