21

by Frank Crane

How to spend your life so that you feel it has been worth while. This is perhaps the most important self help book you will ever read. "Life is not a science, to be learned; it is an art, to be practised. Ability comes by doing. Wisdom comes not from others; it is a secretion of experience. Life is not like a problem in arithmetic, to be solved by learning the rule; it is more like a puzzle of blocks, or wire rings--you just keep trying one way after another, until finally you succeed, maybe. I imply that any one can be happy if he will. Happiness does not depend on circumstances, but upon Me. This is perhaps the greatest truth in the world, and the one most persistently disbelieved. Happiness, said Carlyle, is as the value of a common fraction, which results from dividing the numerator by the denominator. The numerator, in life, is What We Have. The denominator is What We Think We Ought to Have. Mankind may be divided into two classes: Fools and Wise. The fools are eternally trying to get happiness by multiplying the numerator, the wise divide the denominator. They both come to the same--only one you can do and the other is impossible. If you have only one thousand dollars and think you ought to have two thousand dollars, the answer is one thousand divided by two thousand, which is one half. Go and get another thousand and you have two thousand divided by two thousand, which is one; you have doubled your contentment. But the trouble is that in human affairs as you multiply your numerator you unconsciously multiply your denominator at the same time, and you get nowhere. By the time your supply reaches two thousand dollars your wants have risen to twenty-five hundred dollars."

30 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1929

About the author

1861-1928

Reviews

[Menna Elmanzalawy · Rating 3 out of 5]

هذه مجموعة من المقالات كتبها فرانك كراين على شكل عشر نصائح للشباب في سن ال21 ، وهو على مشارف الخمسين. أرى أن بعضها نصائح حالمة نوعًا ما وبعيدة عن واقعنا.. لا عجب، فقد تمت كتابتها في العشرينيات.
قراءة مسلية على كل حال.
http://manybooks.net/titles/cranef236...

[Cyprien Crabbé · Rating 3 out of 5]

Funny read, but it definitely aged. It's pretty interesting to read what was expected of a fellow my age some decennia ago.

[Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

An instructive guide as to how one should floor plan their life; while also being a measuring rod as to how you may amend your foundation. In so doing, be able to still build a beautiful house.