Irish Jesuit Province

Looking at the Bright SideAuthor(s): William A. SuttonSource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 23, No. 260 (Feb., 1895), pp. 72-74Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20498766 .

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( 72 )

LOOKING AT THE BRIGHT SIDE.

r-o acquire the habit of making the best of a bad job needs 1 much practice, lke every other valuable habit. But it is

worth the price. Considering what life is, so often at all events, there is nothing will help us more to make a good hand of it, than

learning how to make the best of a bad job. Life is largely com

posed of bad jobs and is often a tangle of them. What an amount of suffering we have to go though! Verily " a heavy yoke

is on all the children of Adam." The more we learn about others, the more we understand, how true this is.

No doubt suffering is not equally divided. Some of us get off much easier than others. But we cannot reckon on continued im munity. Any day'anyone may have to face anguish, misery, disaster. Accidents, even of an appalling kind, are everywhere possible. Interior wretchedness springs from multitudes of sources. Our nature is so complex and conflicting, higher appetites and lower, cravings for happiness and gratification, yearnings and strivings to realize our ideals, struggling to acquit ourselves of our responsibili ties stumbling and falling, the frequent impossibility of effecting a tolerable balance in the conduct of life: what uneasiness, worry, and dejection barass us from these and cognate causes !

We are so bound up with otbers, who are part and parcel of ourselves in many ways, that any day or hour anguish may come upon us through them. Then there is the great world with all its dreadful realities and shocking miseries, physical and moral woe, which books and newspapers bring so vividly before the mind. The wisest of men said no one could understand the distraction and disorder on the face of the earth. So we need not try to understand it. What we need is to know, how to act and to train ourselves in so acting. The explanation and justification of the state of the

world is promised to us finally. God is goodness and truth. We must trust Him. He is able by His wisdom and power to recon cile what appears to our small minds irreconcileable. Meanwhile experience proves, the best way of making good use of untoward events is to look at the bright side, as far as possible, and to make the best of a bad job.

" There is no use crying over spilt milk." This is true for this life and for the next, in temporal matters as well as in spiritual.

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Looking at the Br-ight Side. 73

Whether the mistake, mismanagement, misfortune, misery that weighs upon us is our own or others, the worst way to deal with it is to allow it to overwhelm us, as if there was no remedy, no

bright side. There always is some good and often great and grand good to be got. Errando discttur, we grow Wise from going wrong, if we only try. The world in great part is a mass and a

mess of mismanagement. " How very weak the very wise, h-ow

very small the very great are! " Wonderful are God's ways! He governs fhe world with infinite wisdom, and yet he uses instru ments so frail, so frequently unsatisfactory. Things will come right in the end somehow. Evil is not to be finally triumphant. Good will be victorious and incomparably more gloriously so because of the conflict with evil. This is absolutely certain. Who ever trains himself to look at the bright side, always to try to make

the best of a bad job is taking a sure means of being on the

winning siCde.

Those who lost heart and give way to sadness go from bad to

worse. There is no limit to the misery they may bring upon

themselves, if they do not mend their ways and resist sadness and

sloth, that follows. Those who force themselves to cheer up and hope, get some good always out of their misfortunes and frequently make their very miseries the means of greater success.

Let a man steadily set himself to practise this philosophy of life, and he must do well. He may not always appear successful,

though generally even that will prove to be the case; but, how

ever appearances go, solid success will be his. Many a human

life appears a failure, which before God is a glorious victory over the powers of evil. Despair is consummated folly, and despon

dency is the beginning. Folly is the worst sort of ignorance. Sound knowledge of life makes us know that there are always

grounds for hope, of some sort or other. We may always hope,

that something will occur, wbich will give us an opportunity of

escape, of overcoming difficulties, of repairing mistakes. of ultimate success. In commerce, in war, in politics, in studies, in the

various professions, in games, in every kind of contest, in face of

danger and appalling circumstances human experience proves, that those, who keep a brave heart and do their best to struggle against

difficulty and disaster, over and over again " are saved by hope."

If all men should try to make the best of bad jobs as the best

means of escaping misery, owing to the infinite possibilities and VoL. XXi11 No. 260 6

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74 The Irish Monthly.

contingencies of life, much more should one fully believing in God and in His Providence. It is certain, that God governs the world and the whole course of human life with a providence, that enters into and reckons with and for even its smallest details. We do not know what is, or is not, imp?rtant in our lives, though for each individual every free act is important and everything, which is tbe cause or occasion of free acts, and moreover any of these apparently unimportant events may te the occasion or condition of events, which may even affect the history of the world. Every thing then great and small is controlled and directed by the provi dence of God. He is infinite in power, wisdom and goodness. The course of events is so controlled by God, that for all it be already arranged, how things shall proceed, nevertheless till they happen, it is just as if they were not irrevocably fixed, but God holds Himself ready to do the will of those, who pray and trust in Him. in multitudes of matters. Indeed the will of God is, that

much of what He does in the course of His providence, shall be in response to our prayers freely made and in reward for our freely endeavouring to place all our confidence in Him. "God helps them who help themselves," He always delivers them who hope in

Him. He knows how, He is able, He has promised to do so. This is the ultimate reason and the best for making the best of things, for looking at the bright side of things, for trying again and again and never giving up in despair. While we live it is never too late to hope in Glod and to make all right with Him,

no matter what has happened, and thereby to secure that our life shall be a real success, however much it may seem a failure, as far

as this world is concerned. It. is not always possible to save ourselves by hope for this life,

though hoping is the best way of meeting difficulties, even when they prove insurmountable, but it is always possible to save our selves spiritually and for ever by obstinately insisting on hoping in

God and trying again up to the last. A man may by merely

natural powers get the habit of cheerily making the best of things, of hopefully trying again after repeated ill-success, for we have great powers of this kind from our rational nature, but it is above all with the help of God's grace we have to set about getting tne habit of looking at the bright side of things, of making the best of a bad job, of beginning again as often as we break down, of unlimitedly hoping.

WILLIAM A. OUTTON, S.J.

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