Wisdom & Empowerment: The Orison Swett Marden Edition (18 Books in One Volume). Orison Swett Marden

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СКАЧАТЬ There is nothing like music to cheer up and enliven the home and to drive dull care, the blues, and melancholy away.

      Music tends to restore and preserve the mental harmony. Nervous diseases are wonderfully helped by good music. It keeps one’s mind off his troubles, and gives nature a chance to heal all sorts of mental discords.

      You will find that a little fun in the evening, romping and playing with the children, will make you sleep better. It will clear the physical cobwebs and brain-ash from your mind. You will be fresher and brighter for it the next day. You will be surprised to see how much more work you can do, and how much more readily you can do it if you try to have all the innocent fun you can.

      We have all felt the wonderful balm, the great uplift, the refreshment, the rejuvenation which have come from a jolly good time at home or with friends, when we have ¡come home after a hard, exacting day’s work, when our bodies were jaded and we were brain-weary and exhausted. What magic a single ho r’s fun will often work in a tired soul!

      We feel as though we have had a refreshing nap. How a little fun releases us from weariness, and sends a thrill of joy and uplift through the whole being!

      Laughter is as natural a form of expression as music, art, or work of any kind. We can not' be really healthy without a lot of fun.

      There is something abnormal, something wrong in the parent who is annoyed by the romping, the playing, the laughter of children. The probabilities are that his own child-life was suppressed. The man who would not grow old must keep in touch with young life.

      Do not be afraid of playing in the home. Get down on the floor and romp with the children. Never mind the clothes, the carpets, or the furniture. Just determine that you will put a good lot of fun into your life every day, let come what will.

      Have all the fun you can at the table. It is a place for laughter and joking. It is a place for bright repartee. Swallow a lot of fun with your meals. The practice is splendid. It is the best thing in the world for your health. It is better than swallowing dyspepsia with every mouthful of food. The meal time ought to be looked forward to by every member of the family as an occasion for a good time, for hearty laughter, and for bright, entertaining conversation. The children should be trained to bring ‘their best moods and say their brightest and best things at the table. If this practice were put in force it would revolutionize American homes and drive the doctors to despair.

      I know a family in which joking and funny story telling at meals has become such an established feature that it is a real joy to dine with them. The dinner hour is sure to afford a jolly good time. There is a rivalry among the members of the family to see who can say the brightest, wittiest thing, or tell the best story. There is no dyspepsia, no nagging in this family.

      A few hours of sunshine will do for plants what months of cloudy weather could never do. It is the sunshine that gives the delicate, inimitable tint of beauty to fruit and flower. We all require mental sunshine.

      I have been in homes that were so somber and sad and gloomy that they made me feel depressed the moment I entered them. Nobody dared to say his soul was his own, and to laugh out loud was regarded almost as a misdemeanor. If the children made any noise they were told to stop, sit down, hush up, or be quiet. Everybody who attempted to have a little fun was promptly squelched. One felt, even though it was not seen, that this sign was everywhere about the house: “No joking allowed here. Laughter forbidden. No romping or playing here. Life is too short and too serious a matter for such frivolity. Besides, the furniture might be scratched, bric-a-brac might be broken, or the children’s clothes soiled or rumpled.”

      A little while ago I was a guest in the home of a large family where the mother was of the nervous, fretful, trouble-borrowing kind of women, who neither enjoys herself nor will let others enjoy themselves. There was scarcely five minutes during my stay that she was not Correcting, repressing, scolding, or nagging one of the children. It did not seem to make any difference what they were doing, she would tell them not to do it. If a child stood in an open doorway or near an open window, she was sure he would “get his death of cold.” He must not eat this, he must not make a noise, he must not play; he must not do this, and he must not do that.

      She kept on repressing' her children in this manner throughout the evening, until they were very nervous and fretful. The result of this constant repression is that there is not a really normal child in the family. There is a sort of hungry, unsatisfied look in the faces of every one of them. They give one the impression that they long to get away from their mother and to let themselves out in laughter and play to their heart’s content.

      It is worse than cruel, it is a crime to crush the childhood out of any life, to suppress the fun-loving instinct, which is as natural as breathing, for no wealth or luxuries in later life can compensate for the loss of one’s childhood.

      We have all seen children who have had no childhood. The fun-loving element has been crushed out of them„ They have been repressed and forbidden to do this and that so long that they have lost the faculty of having a good time. We see these little old men and women everywhere.

      Children should be kept children just as long as possible. What has responsibility, seriousness, or sadness to do with childhood? We always feel indignant, as well as sad, when we see evidences of maturity, over-seriousness, care or anxiety, in a child’s face, for we know some one has sinned somewhere.

      The little ones should be kept strangers to anxious care, reflective thoughts, and subjective moods. Their lives should be kept light, bright, buoyant, cheerful, full of sunshine, joy, and gladness. They should be encouraged to laugh and to play and to romp to their heart’s content. The serious side of life will come only too quickly, do what we may to prolong childhood.

      One of the most unfortunate things I know of is the home that is not illuminated by at least one cheerful, bright, sunny young face, that does not ring with the persistent laughter and merry voice of a child.

      No man or woman is perfectly normal who is distressed or vexed by the playing of children. There was something wrong in your bringing up if it annoys you to see children romping, playing, and having a good time.

      If there is a pitiable sight in the world, it is that of parents always suppressing their children, telling them not to laugh, or not to do this or that, until the little things actually lose the power of natural expression. Joy will go out of the life when continually suppressed.

      The first duty we owe a child is to teach it to express itself, to fling out its inborn gladness and joy with as much freedom as the bobolink when it makes the whole meadow glad with its song. Laughter, absolute abandon, freedom, and happiness are essential to its health and success. These are a part of its nature. It can not be normal without them.

      Suppression of the fun-loving nature of a child means the suppression of its mental faculties. The mind will not develop normally under abnormal conditions. There is every evidence in a child’s nature that play is as necessary to its normal, complete development as food, and if the fun-loving faculties are suppressed, the whole nature will be strangled. Play is as necessary to the perfect development of a child as sunshine is to the perfect development of a plant. The childhood that has no budding and flowering, or only a partial unfolding of its petals, will have nothing but gnarled and pinched fruitage. The necessity for play in the very beginning of a child’s development is shown by the fact that the instinct to play is so strong in all young life, including the entire animal kingdom.

      Most homes are far too serious. Why not let the children dance and play to their heart’s content? They will get rubs enough, knocks enough in the world; they will get enough of the hard side of life later. Resolve that they shall at least be just as happy as you can make them while at home, so that if they should have unfortunate СКАЧАТЬ