Thursday, February 28, 2013

Scoutcraft - Happy


A man dared to tell me the other day that he was the happiest man in the world! I had to tell him of one who is still happier. You need not suppose that either of us in attaining this happiness had never had difficulties to contend with. Just the opposite. It is the satisfaction of having successfully faced difficulties and borne pin-pricks that gives completeness to the pleasure of having overcome them. Don't expect your life to be a bed of roses ; there would be no fun in it if it were. So, in dealing with the Scouts, you are bound to meet with disappointments and setbacks. Be patient: more Britons ruin their work or careers through want of patience than do so through drink or other vices. You will have to bear patiently with irritating criticisms and red tape bonds to some extent; but your reward will come. The satisfaction which comes of having tried to do one's duty at the cost of self-denial, and of having developed characters in the boys which will give them a different status for life, brings such a reward as cannot well be set down in writing. The fact of having worked to prevent the recurrence of those evils which, if allowed to run on, would soon be rotting the nation, gives a man the solid comfort that he has done something, at any rate, for his country, however humble may be his position.

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