The big business of life, the business of abolishing work and turning this world back into a playground; success for all

Front matter

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Class

Chapter I What Are We?

Human Flashlights Full of Batteries

(The lecturer holds a flashlight before the audience.*)

LET ME TALK to the children first. ''Children, you see this flashlight in my hands. It is from one of the oldest and most exclusive flashlight factories in the land. The makers of this flashlight trace their ancestry back to the Mayflower. It was finished under the best masters. It is a very successful flashlight, isn't it?" "We don't know, mister. Why don't you — " "What? You don't know? Well Ffl take it to older, wiser people, and they'll know." So I go out on the street and ask the people who go by to look at my flashlight. 'Tt is a very successful flashlight, isn't it, people?"

"No, sir," says one. "Why, man, what can you expect for only two dollars ? Your flashlight is only brass. Noth-

*This book is a reproduction of lectures on "The Big Business of Life" the author has long given before lyceum, chautauqua and other audiences. Hence the colloquial style. 11 ing that cheap can be a success. Get gold bands around it, if you want it recognized as a success."

Well ! Well ! I go to work and toil and save until I have gold bands around it. Now I say, "Flashlight, you are a great, golden success. See, children, how successful it is."

"But, mister, it isn't a success. Why don't you — ?"

I refuse to listen to these ignorant children. I go up and down the street again asking, "How can I make my flashlight a success?" A society queen replies, "You must put diamonds around it and a sunburst on the bottom, and then it will be the most beautiful and sought-after flashlight in the city."

Fine !' I go to work and save my money year after year. ■At last I have my flashlight covered with diamonds. "Hurrah ! What a glittering success my flashlight is now !"

"Aw ! That isn't a success !" cry the children around me. "Why don't you — "

But I rush down the street again. What do these simple children know about success? I must ask "successful," "solid" people. "Tell me, successful people, why isn't my flashlight a success?"

"So far you have run well," replies a gentleman with a voice about as juiceless as a cash-register. "But keep on running. You are just starting to make it succeed. You must get it into a big house on Easy Street. Nothing can succeed down there in that little house on Tincan Alley. You must get it into a big house up among our best people. Then the public will point to your house and say, 'There is the most successful flashlight in our city. It came here worth only two dollars and now see where it lives !' "

"O, thank you, Mr. Juiceless Cashregister. I am only in middle life yet, and maybe I can yet toil and save till I get the big house.'* So I do toil and save and sacrifice for years until I manage to have the big house right up among the best people, with a flock of servants and flunkies and things. I have made my flashHght at last a great success, for I hear the people say as they pass and point to my house, "There lives the most successful flashlight in our city. It came here v^rorth only two dollars and now see the biggest house in the city where it lives."

But I hear the children on the street say, "That old flashlight isn't a success yet. Why doesn't he — "

And something inside of me says that same thing. I am unsatisfied, disappointed, unhappy, I am old and worn-out, all my years spent in getting the gold bands, the diamonds and the big house. It is all empty. Life is a failure, all pursuit and no possession. Let me die, I have nothing more to live for!

"Please, mister," ask those little children, "WHY DON'T YOU PRESS THE BUTTON?"

"Button? Button? Who's got the button? Is there a button to it? What has that got to do with my flashlight? Press that thing?"

IT SHINES !

Well! Well! At last light! Why, now it is a success! A success anywhere — in a big house or a little house, in brass or gold, or diamonds. It isn't what's outside of it but what is inside of it coming out. Why didn't fhey tell me that years ago? How much happiness I have missed! The button right there all the time under my hand!

SUCCESS IS SHINING! Then press the button, shine and succeed.

A World Full of FlashHghts

My friends, I have actually shown a flashlight to many groups of little children and they have given me these answers. Now if children instinctively see the truth of this, don't you think this flashlight is a good place to start to study this baffling, bewildering problem of human success and happiness?

Can I get you to change your world for the purposes of this discussion ? Please lose the ordinary world full of people, flowers, plants, trees and animals. Instead of these see living flashlights. See a world full of Hving flashlights — Human Flashlights, flower flashlights, plant flashlights, tree flashlights and animal flashlights. See instead of that forest a vast assemblage of tree flashlights of different kinds, thousands of them standing side by side. See that lawn and meadow just acres of grass flashlights. See that cornfield just acres of cornstalk flashlights in rows upon rows. See the flowers as different kinds of flower flashlights.

Take a little time to visualize a world of flashlights and I believe some of the mysteries will disappear. See that bird flying overhead as a bird flashlight. See all the birds as winged, feathered flashlights. See all the other animals the same way — horse flashlights, dog flashlights, cat flashlights, - fish flashlights !

And all the people Human Flashlights! You and I and everybody else Human Flashlights — big, little, tall, short, thick, thin Human Flashlights. They fill the houses, they crowd the streets. Human Flashlights in kitchens, down in mines, standing over machines, carrying hods, sitting in offices, bossing other Human Flashlights and getting bossed by Human Flashlights. Human Flashlights loafing in parlors among the Four Hundred and loafing on park benches among the Four Thousand. Human FlashHghts all, no matter whether dressed in robes or rags.

Awkward, unnatural to look at the world this way, you say? Please don't go farther till this flashlight idea soaks in. I believe if you'll stop long enough to see it clearly we'll have a fine time all the way thru. The idea seemed at first awkward and far-fetched to me. But the longer I thought about it, the more right, true and natural it seemed to me to see. this world as filled with animated flashlights.

Every flashlight has batteries. Shining them is success.

So every Human Flashlight, every plant and animal flashlight, has batteries. Shining them is success.

You see every plant and animal shining its batteries. That is being natural. That is living, functioning. We call their kingdom the kingdom of nature, because they naturally shine and succeed.

S.o there is only one thing for us Human Flashlights to do— be natural, SHINE AND SUCCEED! That is the Big Business of Life. Each of us Human Flashlights has a different outfit of batteries. (We generally call them "talents," ''abilities," "powers," etc., but I like this word batteries, because it means positive action and service.) We have to find what batteries we have and press the buttons and make them shine.

Every time we shine a battery, it grows like the muscle of the arm from use, AND THAT GROWING MAKES US HAPPY. Every time we neglect to shine a battery, it shrivels, AND THAT SHRIVELING MAKES US UN- HAPPY. We are happy and unhappy in "spots."

So we must shine them all. To shine only part is to become an unhappy freak like the horse that only grew one long leg and fell over crippled, or the tree that grew one long branch and toppled to wreck.

Getting Out of Jail

When I saw this a world full of flashlights, I clapped my hands and yelled, "Hurrah !" It was Hke getting out of jail. This world has built a jail of false notions about success and happiness for Human Flashlights. I agree with you the man on the street, the society lady and Mr. Juiceless Cashregister would not insist on the brass flashlight getting the gold bands, the diamonds, the big house in order to succeed, but do they not insist that the Human Flashlight get the gold bands, the diamonds and the big house in order to be successful and happy?

And is not this false and limited idea of success, that success and happiness are for the limited few who can get the gold bands, the diamonds and the big house, the cause of the unnatural development, the unrest and urihappiness in the world today?

Success and happiness for everybody alike who is willing to shine f Isn't that deliverance from jail?

We are not hodcarriers, housekeepers or bankers; we are all Human Flashlights shining a few of our batteries carrying hods, keeping house or running banks. What are we doing with the rest of our batteries? How many batteries we are shining determines how successful and happy we are. When the hodcarrier shines all his batteries, he is just as successful as the housekeeper or the banker can be.

The other morning I saw 15,000 Human Flashlights carrying dinner-pails, go to work in a great manufacturing plant. The Human Flashlight who built and operates this plant is considered a shining success. I really do not know how successful he is, for I do not know how many of his batteries he shines, which decides how happy he is. You tell me how happy a man is and I'll tell you how successful he is. Some of the most unsuccessful people I know live in some of the biggest houses, and others just as unsuccessful live in some of the smallest houses. They are unhappy, because not shining all-around.

But if I did not believe that every one of the 15,000 working in that plant could and SHOULD be just as successful as the one who built and runs it, I would believe that this universe was run by an unjust and unloving God. Surely each of the 15,000 cannot build and operate such a plant, for they haven't that kind of batteries, perhaps. But each can find what batteries he does have, and shine them. That is being just as successful and happy as the one at the head of the plant can possibly be.

That is getting out of the world's false jail. Hurrah! There is just as much success and happiness for one as another. There is just as much success for the blade of grass in being itself, as there is for the giant oak in being itself. And there is only one person who can decide whether we will be successful or unsuccessful and unhappy — OUR- SELF. All of us can press the buttons, shine and succeed.

''What Career Shall I Choose?"

Then we have the answer to that perplexing question. O, how we worry over it ! The high school graduate going out to "take charge of the world" looks in the mirror and asks, "What career shall I choose in life?" And the fate of worlds seems to rest upon that decision! The proud parent asks, "What career shall we choose for our child? What shall we make out of the precious darling?" And we older ones who seem not to have found our place ask, "What shall I do next?"

We talk about choosing a career as tho we were choosing a necktie or an automobile ! We cannot choose a career ; the career chooses us. We cannot make something out of the child or out of ourselves. We are already made. All we can ever do is to untie the strings, take off the wrappings and see what is inside. "Loose him and let him go." And grow !

Wouldn't that question be funny out in nature? "What career shall I choose?"

See that little apple-sprout coming up thru the ground. "What career shall I choose? Shall I be an apple-tree or a gooseberry bush?" See those little onions I planted sticking their green noses up thru the ground. "What career shall we choose ? Shall we be cabbages or dill-pickles ? Say, boys, let's be strawberries. Strawberries get so much money."

The little bird might as well ask, "Mama, shall I fly or blossom?" The little fish might as well ask, "Shall I sing?"

Nothing in nature ever makes a mistake. That is why we call it nature. No plant or animal ever goes to a vocational diagnostician to know what to do in life. Something inside tells each one what to do. That something is the batteries, and each lets its own batteries naturally shine.

The apple-tree lets its apple-tree batteries shine. It has no gooseberry batteries. The onions are full of good, strong onion batteries and just let them shine. The bird is full of fly and sing batteries. The flower has blossom batteries. The fish has swim batteries. The sun has shine batteries, the old hen has cackle batteries. If she should try to shine, she would wail, "Nobody loves me." But she is a greater success than the sun at cackling. So each of us is the greatest success being our natural self. The eagle has soar batteries, the mule has bray batteries. If the eagle should try to bray, the proud bird of our country would have to come right down off our banner. And if the mule should try to soar, the price of mules would come down.

The grasshopper hops because he is full of hop batteries, and in hopping he is far more successful than the elephant. If the elephant should try to hop like the grasshopper, he would certainly muss up the map. The most successful church building would be perhaps the greatest failure as a boiler factory. A locomotive is a grand success pulling trains, but a total failure at mowing lawns. Anybody who has ever had a locomotive mow a lawn will tell you that.

Silly talk, you say? Yes, but not any more foolish than so much of the strut and pose and unnaturalness about "choosing a career.'* Human Flashlights try to be something unnatural or get something unnecessary. They try to be monkeys instead of men, parrots and peacocks instead of people. Some even try to be pigs !

There is a happy and successful career for each one of us. Look within. Don't worry. Don't hurry. We cannot miss anything. What is ours will come to us just as fast as we develop our batteries. Nobody can steal our success. I congratulate you as I congratulate myself that we have the wonderful privilege of Being Ourself. Nobody else can be Ourself, and we can be nobody else. We have a natural monopoly on Being Ourself.

What Batteries Have We?

I believe each Human Flashlight has an assortment of what we might call ABILITY BATTERIES, no two of us with the same outfit. These are variously classified as imitation, observation, initiative, invention, construction, deduction, vision and such. Developing these batteries decides whether we can shine best as artists, writers, musicians, ministers, teachers, lawyers, merchants, bankers, farmers, mechanics or in the thousand other fields of mental and physical service.

Schools and colleges are mainly engaged in developing these batteries. We commonly call this education, but it is only one small part of the complete education. Vocational training is making a fine start here. But most vocational guidance so far is little more than employment agency work.

Underlying, overtopping all these in importance are the great LIFE BATTERIES of spiritual light and power. I might call them the batteries of Faith, Hope and Love. Developing these is the greater education. They shine out as honesty, courage, courtesy, gentleness, kindness, sincerity, humility, unselfishness, purity, modesty, meekness, temperance, trustworthiness, wisdom, understanding. These batteries brighten and warm everything we do. Without them our activities, no matter how skillful and efficient, are "sounding brass and tinkling cymbal."

The speech is only empty words, the song only meaningless notes, the book only dry sentences without the glorifying, vitalizing light and warmth of these Life Batteries. Here is the secret of power and greatness. Here is the magic of beauty. Regular features and charming complexion are worthwhile, but with these alone there is nothing to hold the admiration. We soon tire of the doll-face with nothing behind it. Yet the plainest face becomes beautiful, warmed and lighted by sympathy, modesty, love and the radiance of the Life batteries. Soul beauty never fades. You cannot buy it at a drug store and rub it on, you grow it from the batteries within. The plain, homely face of Abraham Lincoln has been pronounced by great artists one of the most beautiful in the world. It was glorified by the light of those great Life batteries he developed in the Gethsemanes of his career.

So the Ability batteries are only the vehicle for the transmission of the light of the Life batteries. And the person who shines his Ability batteries alone is an empty wagon rattling thru life.

The world is wearied and burdened with a deluge of cleverness and smartness. But the world cries out ahungered for sympathy, light, life, love. We have gone to seed on efficiency in mechanics and conservation. But we are just beginning to see the vast need for the inspiration of the heart to prompt the head and hand. The schools have developed the Ability batteries magnificently, but they so far have barely made a start in the far more important work of appealing to the Life batteries. The sad failures are the ones with only head-development. The educated rascal is the most dangerous, because only partly educated. The sophistries of the demagog are the blind leading the blind. Here is the universal democracy of success. All work is great and glorious alike whether following the plow or leading the procession, when illuminated with a great life. All work is contemptible, dark, cold, unsatisfying, without it.

''Shine Your Light!''

The Great Teacher once said to his pupils, "Let your light so shine." One day I looked it up in the original Greek in which it was written down as he uttered it. I was amazed (and delighted), to discover he did not merely suggest that we shine our light, if we feel like it and have nothing else to do and it doesn't rain. No. What he really said was put imperatively, as a command, "SHINE YOUR LIGHT!" Make it shine, whether you feel like it or not, and you will feel like it.

These ages we have perhaps thought that saying was a dreamy bit of sentiment or imagery, when in fact he was giving the great secret of success and happiness — SHINE AND SUCCEED!

And that gives added meaning to that old saying, "You've got it in you." Yes! Now your Big Business is getting it out!

All of Us Seeking Happiness

What do we all want? HAPPINESS. This is the universal goal.

We get up in the morning to be happy. I used to think if I could lie in bed I would be happier. But I find when I do lie in bed the neighbors talk about me and my business goes to smash, so I average it and find I am happier when I get up than when I lie in bed — Harry Lauder's famous song to the contrary.

Most of us are happier going with the majority than in being non-conformists.

I used to dream that some day I'd be so rich and retired I could wind my alarm-clock and set it to go off early. Then when it did go off, I would smash it with my shoe and sleep all day. But I am learning as I look around at the rich and retired, who do not have to get up with alarm-clocks, that most of the happy people do have to rise when some bell calls.

I used to worry when a boy about having to wash my face every morning — and so far around, clear back of my ears ! But I am learning I have to do so many things I do not want to do, in order to be able to do the things I do want to do. We all have to build considerable track to get to our playgrounds and lay much wire to give our batteries expression.

Whatever we are doing, it is to be happy, whether we realize it or not.

Some people take a cold bath every morning to be happy. Sometimes I think they get most of their happiness telling other people about it. There be other tribes who believe that to be happy one must boycott bathtubs.

The boy wants to be a man to be happy. The man wants to be a boy to be happy. The father says to his son, "My boy, come hither. I would speak to thee." The child obeys — to be happy!

Just look down the street at the throng of Human Flashlights, pushing, jostling, hurrying to get somewhere' to be happy. A million going a million different directions. One is hurrying home to be happy, another is hurrying away from home, to be happy. One is hunting somebody, and another is dodging somebody, to be happy. One is seeking employment and another is avoiding employment, to be happy. One is going to the country, another is going to the city, to be happy. One is lying to others, another is lying to himself, to be happy.

I look over the old family album and marvel as I study the daguerreotypes of one generation, the tintypes of another and the platinum prints and kodaks of yet another — marvel at what humanity has cheerfully suffered in the name of style to be happy. We have pinched our feet and stretched our necks and punctured our purses to be happy. We have shivered in winter gauze and sweltered in summer furs. I look in dismay on the stovepipe hats and tight trousers of Lincoln^s day, and the old-fashioned hoops that were the happiness of the gentler sex. They looked like haystacks or circus-tents. Mother looked like an umbrella opened. Daughter today looks more like an umbrella closed!

Even the man who does not believe happiness possible for him goes right on carrying his load to be happy. He knows that he would be more unhappy to drop it on his toes. If he ends his existence here, he simply believes he will be happier dead than alive.

Only Two Places for Happiness

So the millions of Human Flashlights seek happiness in millions of different places. But they all boil down into two places. There are only two places in which to seek happiness— OUTSIDE of us and INSIDE of us.

The Outsiders seek their happiness in the outside results of their shining.

The Insiders seek their happiness in the successful development of their batteries in shining.

The Outsiders are the lop-siders. They go on developing their Ability Batteries that get them things and shrivel their Life Batteries. They are the Getters, the Little Business Men.

The Insiders are the all-siders. They go on trying to develop all their Ability and Life Batteries. They are the Growers, the Big Business Men.

CHAPTER II THE OUTSIDERS Why Getters Never Get Happiness

JUST A WORD about this disappointing game of get. Most of us spend most of our lives trying to get the gold bands, the diamonds and the big house. We want to succeed. "When I get that I'll be happy."

So we get the big house, and it becomes just as monotonous as the little house — more monotonous, for there is more of it to get monotonous. We find that lobster salad gets just as tasteless as mush and milk on our fevered palate. We find that silk gets just as hateful as cotton on a discontented, disappointed back. We find that managing a million is more trouble than managing a mule. We find that every vote that puts us into office is not a boost but a burden — a liability, not an asset.

And the siren Goddess of Get says, "Get more! You'll be happy when you get more."

Somebody asked a porter on a California-bound train, "George, where are all these people going?" "Doan* know, boss, but I 'spose dey's goin' from where dey is to where dey ain't." The feeling grows on me that this fever to get things is just "goin* from where dey is to where dey ain't" — moving from Inside to Outside. 25

We Must Get Things

Yes, we must get things — get them not for the sake of getting, but as wires to conduct the current from our batteries. Keep them well insulated, else they will shock, benumb and kill.

Get money, land, power just as much as our batteries need for development, as the boy gets the ball-bat that he can play a better game of ball. Get them as a carpenter gets tools that he can better shine his carpenter batteries.

It is fine to get the gold bands, the diamonds and the big house, for these help us to express ourselves harmoniously. They make us comfortable. But being comfortable is far from being happy. Some of the most comfortably situated people are the unhappiest, and some of the most uncomfortably situated people are the happiest.

All other getting is like piling up snowballs. We press them to our bosom and they freeze our heart. And then melt! The Outsiders let their Life Batteries shrivel.

Getting My Toe

I think I can remember when I was in a cradle. I am not positive, but I have a hazy memory of lying in a little crib and being very unhappy. I told them I wasn't happy. You have no idea how often I told them I wasn't happy. "Wah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah ! I'm not happy !'*

I did not speak their language. The barbarians around my crib did so many things to me to make me happy. They handled me, dandled me, dangled me, strangled me, scrambled me, addled me, paddled me and committed other loving atrocities.

I wanted so many things. One day I saw something wiggle at the other end of the cradle. It was a little pink thing

THE OUTSIDERS 27

that stuck out from under the covers. ''Ah ! That is what I want. I want my toe. Here, you barbarians, get me my toe. I want my toe and then I'll be happy. Get me my toe !"

Nobody got me my toe. I had to get it myself. It was hard work for a baby like me to get my toe. It has always been hard for me to make both ends meet. But at last I got my toe. I put it in the only pocket a baby has. But my toe- did not taste half so good as I thought it was going to taste. I was so disappointed in my toe.

"Wah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah ! I want to be happy!"

Getting the Moon

Then I saw something shiny right up there thru the window. "Ah ! That is what I want — that shiny thing up there. Here, you barbarians, get me the moon!"

But nobody got me the moon and I had to get it myself. It was hard work for a baby to get the moon. I would reach for it, but the bad old moon would go away from me. I kept reaching for the moon farther and farther. I did not get the moon at all. But I fell out of the crib and bumped my head on the floor.

These years since I have seen a great many larger babies crying and struggling to get the moon, to be happy. 1 have never seen any of them get the moon, but I have seen a lot of soreheads!

Getting That Paper Thing

And then one day when I was a "right smart of a boy" (more smart than right), I was going thru the woods with father — ^thru the big woods around our cabin home in what was then the "Black Swamp" of Ohio. I saw a queer round thing that looked like it was made out of gray paper, hanging up in a tree. It was pear-shaped, and the limb looked like it was shoved thru the top of the gray paper thing.

"O, daddy, look there ! See that gray paper thing hanging up there in that tree. Daddy, let's get that."

But daddy was not interested. He took me by the arm and led me away from that tree. *'My boy, you don't want that gray paper thing. You would not know what to do with it if you had it. You would be very sorry if you got it. And furthermore, I forbid you to get it."

That settled it. I got it. What I am telling you is one of the warmest, keenest, most vivid memories of my boyhood. Father went away that afternoon, and I kept thinking about that gray paper thing hanging up in that tree. ''Father is a nice old man, but he isn't up-to-date. He doesn't know what a boy needs nowadays to make him happy. I just got to get that gray paper thing or I'll never be happy.'*