How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie Page B

both
    may have about an equal amount of money and prestige
    - and yet one may be miserable and the other happy.
    Why? Because of a different mental attitude. I have seen
    just as many happy faces among the poor peasants toiling
    with their primitive tools in the devastating heat of the
    tropics as I have seen in air-conditioned offices in New
    York, Chicago or Los Angeles.

    “There is nothing either good or bad,” said Shakespeare,
    “but thinking makes it so.”

    Abe Lincoln once remarked that “most folks are about
    as happy as they make up their minds to be.” He was
    right. I saw a vivid illustration of that truth as I was
    walking up the stairs of the Long Island Railroad station
    in New York. Directly in front of me thirty or forty crippled
    boys on canes and crutches were struggling up the
    stairs. One boy had to be carried up. I was astonished at
    their laughter and gaiety. I spoke about it to one of.the
    men in charge of the boys. “Oh, yes,” he said, “when a
    boy realizes that he is going to be a cripple for life, he is
    shocked at first; but after he gets over the shock, he usually
    resigns himself to his fate and then becomes as
    happy as normal boys.”

    I felt like taking my hat off to those boys. They taught
    me a lesson I hope I shall never forget.

    Working all by oneself in a closed-off room in an office
    not only is lonely, but it denies one the opportunity of
    making friends with other employees in the company.
    Se ñ ora Maria Gonzalez of Guadalajara, Mexico, had
    such a job. She envied the shared comradeship of other
    people in the company as she heard their chatter and
    laughter. As she passed them in the hall during the first
    weeks of her employment, she shyly looked the other
    way.

    After a few weeks, she said to herself, “Maria, you
    can’t expect those women to come to you. You have to
    go out and meet them. ” The next time she walked to the
    water cooler, she put on her brightest smile and said,
    “Hi, how are you today” to each of the people she met.
    The effect was immediate. Smiles and hellos were returned,
    the hallway seemed brighter, the job friendlier.

    Acquaintanceships developed and some ripened into
    friendships. Her job and her life became more pleasant
    and interesting.

    Peruse this bit of sage advice from the essayist and
    publisher Elbert Hubbard - but remember, perusing it
    won’t do you any good unless you apply it:

    Whenever you go out-of-doors, draw the chin in, carry the
    crown of the head high, and fill the lungs to the utmost;
    drink in the sunshine; greet your friends with a smile, and
    put soul into every handclasp. Do not fear being misunderstood
    and do not waste a minute thinking about your enemies.
    Try to fix firmly in your mind what you would like to
    do; and then, without veering off direction, you will move
    straight to the goal. Keep your mind on the great and splendid
    things you would like to do, and then, as the days go
    gliding away, you will find yourself unconsciously seizing
    upon the opportunities that are required for the fulfillment
    of your desire, just as the coral insect takes from the running
    tide the element it needs. Picture in your mind the able,
    earnest, useful person you desire to be, and the thought you
    hold is hourly transforming you into that particular individual.
    . . . Thought is supreme. Preserve a right mental attitude -
    the attitude of courage, frankness, and good cheer.
    To think rightly is to create. All things come through desire
    and every sincere prayer is answered. We become like that
    on which our hearts are fixed. Carry your chin in and the
    crown of your head high. We are gods in the chrysalis.

    The ancient Chinese were a wise lot - wise in the
    ways of the world; and they had a proverb that you and
    I ought to cut out and paste inside our hats. It goes like
    this: “A man without a smiling face must not open a
    shop.”

    Your smile is a messenger of your good will. Your
    smile brightens the lives