What the World Owes Us

WHAT THE WORLD OWES EVERY MAN AND WHAT EVERY MAN OWES THE WORLD – WHY PEOPLE ARE
AND ARE NOT LOVED – COMPLAINING FOR SYMPATHY VERSUS LOVING AND SERVING – THE
SCIENCE OF WINNING LOVE There is a constructive, or integrating principle in
nature, and a destructive, or disintegrating principle. – Power applied through the
constructive principle builds, forms and integrates; it draws atoms and forms
together. – Power applied through the destructive principle dissolves and
disintegrates; it disperses atoms and forms, and throws them apart. – To learn how
to make every thought and action constructive, is to master the secret of all
attainment. It is not true that the world owes every man a living. The world does
not owe anybody a living. We do not come into the world to collect something that
is due us from the people who are already here. We come into the world to live.
This matter of our just claims upon the people around about us is one that we
should consider very carefully in order that we may know how much to ask or expect
and how much to give. We need to understand that the mere fact that we have made
our advent upon this stage of action does not confer upon other people an
obligation to love us or even to think well of us, without regard to what we do, or
what we are. We often hear people assert in a complaining way that others do not
care as much for them as they feel they ought to do, and these people seem to think
that in some way they are wronged and robbed of that which is their due if
everybody else does not love them. People feel that if you do not like them you are
doing them an injury and they feel that those among their friends, acquaintances
and relatives who do not manifest a warm affection for them are in some way
derelict in their duty. If you are to find your center and to become a self-active
and self-directing man or woman one of the first things you must learn is that
nobody is under any obligation to love you. There is nobody who “ought” to love
you. There is nobody whose “duty” it is to love you. If you are loved it is “up to
you” to make other people love you, and if you fail in this it is not their fault.
This applies to your own household and family as well as to the people of the
outside world. No husband is under obligation to love his wife; no wife is in duty
bound to love her husband. If your husband does not love you, you have no right or
reason to reproach him for being false to his obligation. The same is true in the
case of the wife. Obligation cannot make a wife love her husband or cause a husband
to love his wife. Let me try to make this plain to you. Suppose that the congress
of the United States should pass a law declaring that all husbands and wives should
love each other tenderly; and suppose that all the religious authorities should
give their sanction to the enactment and bind it upon their people with every form
of solemn ceremony; suppose even that the Almighty Himself should pronounce the
ordinance amid fire and smoke and thunderings as He did the ten commandments upon
Mount Sinai; do you believe that when all had been said and done, the husbands and
wives would love one another any better? Certainly they would not. People cannot
love one another because they have promised to do so at the altar; they cannot love
one another because legislatures have passed laws ordering them to do so and
prescribing penalties if they do not; they cannot love one another because they
have been told to do so by priests and preachers or even by the Deity Himself. If
God should ordain that all the very fat men should fall in love with the redheaded
women and all the red-headed women should reciprocate, the ordinance would be a
failure, for the red-headed women and the very fat men would continue to fall in
love with other people of all builds and complexions just as they do now. If you
are loved it is not going to be because of some obligation that God, nature,
society or circumstance have laid upon other people. It is going to be because of
something within yourself. Love is not a thing which can be given in response to
the enactment of compulsory legislation, whether human or divine. I cannot love you
because gods or men have told me to do so. I cannot love you because I must go to
jail or to everlasting torment if I do not love you. I can only be made to love you
by perceiving something in you which is lovable. If you are to be loved you must
win the affections of other people, and this you can do only by being something
yourself. If in your domestic relationships you are cross, cranky, ill-tempered and
disagreeable you will have no right or reason to complain if your family do not
love you as well as you would like to be loved. It is not their fault. If you are
narrow, selfish and unsocial you have no right to complain if your neighbors do not
manifest as much affection for you as you would like them to have. If you are
forever bidding for sympathy by complaining and telling all your sicknesses and
troubles it is not likely that you will get much love. If you want to be really
loved you must stop seeking to be pitied. The temptation to appeal for sympathy is
very strong with most of us. It is delightful to be pitied, to be ministered to
with tenderness and to have other people manifest their affection for us in
sympathetic service. It is true that suffering and afflictions bring at once to the
surface the affections of those who love us, and it is very pleasant to be loved.
But while it is true that our sufferings and troubles, if we have them, will cause
those who love us to manifest their affections, beware of falling into the error of
believing that these are the things which cause other people to love us. Those who
love us will manifest tenderness and sympathy in our trials and weaknesses, but
they do not love us because of our trials and weaknesses, and to unduly enlarge
upon our troubles, to talk about them, to keep them on dress parade and
everlastingly in sight, is eventually to lose the affections of our friends. People
do not love us for our weaknesses; they love us for our strength. Furthermore we
must learn to avoid the error of thinking that others may be made to love us by
doing things for them. I have heard people recite over the catalogue of good things
they had done for others, and they waxed indignant over the fact that those others
did not manifest love in return for the material service which had been bestowed
upon them. But love cannot be purchased. The cranky, disagreeable, unlovely man
could not hire his neighbors to feel toward him a real genuine affection by giving
them five dollars, ten dollars or ten thousand dollars apiece. Nobody is ever going
to love you because of the things you do for them. The cold-hearted and
unsympathetic person may heap benefits upon those around him, but if he does so
with a view to arousing in their hearts genuine love, he will fail. The great
characters of the world’s history are not loved for what they did for their fellow
men, but for what they were. We do not love the memory of Abraham Lincoln because
of the deeds he did, but because he was Abraham Lincoln. The only thing that is
winning and that really causes love is personality. If you have a distinctive
personality, whether you have personal beauty or not, you will be loved. Your
personality may be rough, it may present many corners and angles, it may not be
attractive at all from the beautiful and artistic point of view, but nevertheless
if you are an advancing soul, not only is somebody going to love you, but, in time,
everybody will love you. What the people hunger for is more of life, larger
existence, more complete living; and they are always drawn to the man or woman who
is living largely and completely, and who is an advancing personality. The man who
makes others feel that he is moving forward attracts all who come within his sphere
of influence, because all people instinctively desire to move forward themselves.
It is a fundamental want, a kind of hunger within us, the desire for advancement
into fuller life, and we cannot help loving those in whom we see the larger life.
Remember that if you are to be loved it will always be for the stronger points in
your personality and never for the weak ones. You may be pitied for your weakness
but you will be loved for your strength. Never make the mistake of seeking to gain
genuine affection by sighs or complaints; it is not to be won that way. Never make
the mistake of trying to buy genuine affection by gifts or service. It comes, not
in response to gifts or service, but in response to the perception of the greatness
of character which lies behind the gift and the service. To be a personality of
power is always to be loved. There is a science of winning love and the essential
part of this science consists in making the very most of yourself. Since your
life’s happiness, in the last analysis, must depend upon the happiness and harmony
of your love relationships you should study deeply along these lines. Love is an
effect and like causes always produce like effects. You can learn how to win the
love of others by cultivating within yourself that which must unfailingly attract
love from others. When you have learned this you have mastered the secret of
happiness.