Get out of Your Shell.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 12 September 1910, Page 4

Get out of Your Shell.

It is a good l thing for us to cultivate our sensibilities—the .heart or siould qualities of our nature—because we thereby gain in the power of making friends, that which tlhere is no more necessary part of our equipment for the winning of genuine and permanent success. Confidence is the basis of trade, all right; but confidence 'without friendliness is as dead as the pifloveribial door-na.il.

Wo aire oreatinres of impulse far oftener than of reason;-and, when all's said and done, wo do what we do, including the .buying of goods, because it pleases us to din so. Cultivate the p_o,wer to please, and watch your sales increase. W'h'flit, then, is a .friend? Let me tell yon. A friend is one with whom we feel at ease, with whom not only can we ho natural without fear ot unkind criticism, but in whose presence it seems natural for us to lie at our best.

We all go armed because life is a_ constant struggle. True, wo hiave discarded .tihe heavy offensive and defensive arsenals of our ancestors bunt we still wear a shell artound our real selves and seldom allow even those closest .to us to touch moire than our artificial exterior.

We were not horn with this impediment. As children we had great power to enjoy and to suffer, and well do we remember with what .feverish haste we set aihouit "protecting" Ourselves firom the assaults ot an unfeeling world. Most of us, unfortunately, have overdone it; we have imprisoned our spirits in a living toihb of the hardest adamant, which, .while it protects us frtmi hurt, at the same time keeps .us from much happiness that might bo ours.

When we made our first trap "on the road," we were either afraid of rebuffs or else keyed ourselves up to a false and unnecessary pitch of watchfulness, Jest wo he taken advantage of in some way.

Young salesmen are prono to douht every man's honesty and sincerity; they are commercial Ishmaelites, with their .hand against every man and every man's hand, to their way of thinking, against them.

In time we outgrow this false idea; we see our -fellowmen as members of a great family, with higliei things at stake than the mere personal advantage of any one of us, we learn the lesson of co-Operation, the spirit of 'all for one and one for all." This is idealism, ailthfonptfi it pleases our pride to call it enlightened solf-in terest.

What to do, then; how are we to make friends

The recipe is.simple—be friendly. Disarm yourself of unkindness, distrust, narrow-mindedness and selfishness, and your neighbour wil, likewise disarm himself—gladly. If you have, naturally or by cultivation the power of reading human nature, use that .power not to discover men's faults and weaknesses, either for the purpose of advantaging yourself or even only that you may despise them in your heart; •but look rather for their possibilities, that, if it bo in your power, you may help them to realise them. Here is a great truth : Every time you help a person to come just a bit nearer to some ideal he is trying to realise, you have hound that person to you with cords that will not easily he loosed. You have increased his self-respect, you have made him a hotter man; aiid in the bottom of his heart he thanks you though he may never tell you' so. On the other hand, every time you tempt, a person to do something which he knows at the time or realises later to be nnworthy, you have made an enemy. .He may forgive von, but he cannot forgive himself; and you have proven that voni ait no friend of his.