Travelling Hopefully

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 684, 8 June 1929, Page 23

Travelling Hopefully

“To travel hopefully is better than to arrive,” wrote Robert Louis Stevenson, and that is the secret of the happiness that lies about youth. The young are forever travelling hopefully; they barely pause to notice arrival at one goal, so anxious are they to press on toward the next. Just in proportion as we grow older and lose that sense of expectancy and the power and persistence to push on toward an ideal, so we part with our capacity for happiness. Looking Back If you look back and try to recall the happiest moment of your life, you’ll find that it wasn’t at the attainment of an ambition, but when that attainment was just in sight. Wherein perhaps lies a grain of comfort for many of us who failed to arrive at all. If we missed the final joy of achievement, at least we knew the greater joy of high endeavour. It’s in haying something to live for that life is livable at all. . , It is when we feel that life is too much for us and we retire from the face that things become unendurable. And it is when this happens that we are apt to mistake cause for effect. Our dullness and discontent are not due to the fact that we failed to reach the goal, but that we failed to stay the course. The Safe Retreat There is neither happiness nor comfort to be derived by sitting back and watching life go by. I know the temptation to do so is at times overwhelming. But once let that “what’s-the-good'’” feeling take hold of you, once let “cui bono?” be your watchword, and you have said good-bye to happi-

ness. It may give a little satisfaction at first. You do not have to bother about anything or anybody. The world cannot hurt you any more, and you feel so wonderfully secure behind your defences. But it gets very dull after a while. Other folks catch your habit of repeating “what’s the good?” in reference to yoursell, and in the end you find that instead of your watching life go by as you intended, life is passing you by. You can’t fall out by the way. If for no greater reason, it is not worth it. There is no drearier retreat than that which is safe and protected. It means staleness of mind and staleness of body. Travelling hopefully is the only real happiness.