This book is about the most interesting and important subject on earth:— you and me. It seeks to demonstrate some of the basic ingredients which go to make up our nature and show how they work to our advantage. The understanding and use of chose qualities can greatly enhance our enjoyment and build lifelong inner strength and peace.

We all want happiness and success. We would like to fall on it by accident, but it will not come by magic or without persona! application. I assure you however, it is obtainable for those who apply themselves to it. I am one who worked towards happiness and success and achieved fulfillment beyond my expectation. I hope you achieve this satisfaction too.

In the following pages are presented some completely new concepts and some older ones in a new light. The object Is to signpost a proven path to greater contentment and enjoyment of this one life we live right here and now.

This is not an inspirational thesis offering press-button cures for all the unhappiness and frustrations of human existence by positive thinking. I do not believe that we can make ourselves happy, successful and rich merely by whipping ourselves up into a positive mental approach or by merely deciding or pretending to be so.

What we are talking about are new concepts, a new understanding of ourselves and an acceptance of our-selves as we really are. That is why we will go back and

spend some time looking at some of our basic drives and come to accept the reality of our animal nature. Too often we have been taught to fight against basic human inclinations. It is possible to develop guilty feelings when we express natural human impulses because we have been taught that they are anti-social or will offend the neighbours or God.

The concepts presented here do not ask the reader to mould himself into restrictive patterns or behaviour, to become euphoric or in any sense unreal There is no room for hysterical pretense. It does, however, ask him to look at human reality, to accept his human nature as he is and apply the basic human principles which naturally spring from it.

Does this mean that change is not called for? No! Indeed a change of attitude and a determination for improvement is essential if lasting emotional growth is to be achieved. There is a promise of great benefit running through these concepts, a promise measured to the extent to which the principles are applied and become a way of life. Don't think, however, that you can read this or any other book and, hey presto! all your problems are solved. Learning and change can only come about when the learner understands and applies the information accrued, and continues to apply it each and every day,

The work of change in the human comes as a result of new concepts which are fully accepted, believed and Crusted. We need to be deeply convinced before we are willing to change our thinking habits or the actions which result from habit.

Peace, fulfillment, successful social interaction, a happy home and a stimulating life are possible for most humans. We need not be forever bound in the vicious circle of frustration, anxiety and despondency. There is a way out of misery, unhappiness and depression for the person who really goes after it. The rewards are there and will follow to the extent he can accept new concepts of life.

The ideas presented here are not only a philosophy — they are the result of personal experience, tested in the fires of personal suffering and years of study and research. There have been thousands of people who, like myself, have set about experiencing deep and permanent change toward maturity and happiness with remarkable success. The paths they have followed have been various and even diverse but they all have had one thing in common. They have come to accept new concepts of life, new evaluations of life.

While there are undoubtedly some who need specialised professional help. there are many more who can benefit from a clear understanding of the principles and forces which drive us.

Each of us has only one short life to live. Largely it will be successful and happy or full of misery and doubt

— the result of our personal concepts of life. This study is aimed at presenting concepts which are factual, basic and powerfully able to point toward a better way of life.

Each one of us who can personally achieve a harmonious and happy personality is contributing toward a happier society and eventually to a better world. I do not offer a quick or easy path, but once the development process has commenced, it can continue with increasing strength, moving toward full and harmonious functioning of the whole personality. Most of us could benefit by moving a little closer to that ideal.

I have not set out to talk about children. Nevertheless, as we examine our own feelings and background, we will automatically be driven to look at child responses to adult attitudes. As we remember and come to understand the moulding influences in our own lives, we will consequently appreciate the development forces affecting our children.

The human child is a very remarkable creature, born with a brain of magnificent potential, with an ability to create mental pictures of memory or future projected possibilities. He grows up with strong emotional feelings and a drive for self expression. Beyond all other animals, man is capable of high achievement and enjoyment but he is also capable of extreme depression or mental suffering.

To excuse his lack of achievement and happiness man often starts blaming others, the economy, his luck or even himself — and the miserable circle of failure and blame goes on and on-

It is not only the poor who are unhappy; I know some very miserable rich people. Being a success in business is no guarantee of happiness. Having power or leisure time or even good health is no guarantee of happiness. A fast car or a fine boat is no substitute for inner peace. There is just no substitute for inner peace. The full and harmonious functioning of the whole personality is achieved through concepts and attitudes of life which spring from a sense of personal worth and orientation-

We are each inescapably bound within the feelings and expressions of our own bodies. No one else can live our lives for us, not even those nearest and dearest to us. In this, like every other person, we are alone in the universe, each living a uniquely individual life.

That is why you and I are the most interesting and important subject on earth.

I have often been amazed at how much emotional damage the human can stand, and then, if given normal conditions later, adjust to a reasonable social standard. Such a person was a young friend of mine whose earliest memories were of watching his mother being beaten by the drunken man with whom she was living. You can imagine the cringing fear and hate, seared on the emotions of the young child. At a very early age my friend was made a ward of the state and was shunted from foster home to foster home over a score of times. Fortunately there was one woman among all those people who gave him the feeling of being cared for and loved for himself and that love, like a lighthouse, influenced his life. It would have been very easy for this young man to have become an enemy of society, he had every reason to be so. I am glad-to say that under the deep hurt was a very nice person who became a good father to his own children.

I look further back to my own early intensive religious training, to the six-and-a-half years spent in an orphanage where my parents were on the staff and my brother and I were in all respects treated equally with the other children. I look back to the struggle to establish myself economically and emotionally. It is now a long, long way from the bewildered, bare footed, slightly shabby child of then, to the present fulfilled, and functioning happy man I find myself to be today.

While it is true that there is always hope for the disadvantaged, there is no saying how much more enjoyment and personal fulfillment that person could have experienced had he not been deprived in early life.