Understanding yourself : the mental hygiene of personality / by Ernest R. Groves.

  • Ernest R. Groves
Date:
[1935]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Understanding yourself : the mental hygiene of personality / by Ernest R. Groves. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    21/296 (page 9)
    for most of us to define satisfactorily, there is nothing un¬ certain about its importance. It best expresses the urge that drives humans into action. It personifies the cravings, the hopes, the willingness to struggle that belong to all of us, in spite of Dean Swift, so long as we find life endurable. What it lacks in exactness of content it more than makes up in its emotional substance. Although nearly everybody claims to desire happiness, it sometimes seems as if no one really wants it. In every other wish we expect, when it is serious, that careful thought be given to some way of obtaining what one seeks. Although a multitude of people insist that they have their hearts set on winning happiness, it is very rare for any one of them to sit down and face squarely the question, What do I need to be happy, and what are the chances of my obtaining what I seek ? Instead they flit from one purpose to another, constantly persuading themselves that if they can only have this or accomplish that, they will be per¬ fectly satisfied. It is this unwillingness to look closely at one’s own cravings that makes the pursuit of happiness usually seem so futile and haphazard. The most superficial adult, if he thinks at all, must ad¬ mit that happiness can never come from anything external to the self. It is as inward as the sense of being alive. Indeed, it is the feeling of being alive ecstatically. Surely, since this is true, no one can plan a lifetime campaign for achieving happiness unless he becomes well acquainted with himself—his equipment, peculiarities, desires, weak- [9]