How Can You Become the Woman Who Makes Her Family Happy?

The search for a better life is a sweet adventure in which mind and body take part; and learning is not from without — it is a growth from within!

How comforting is this feeling of being loved by others!

On a chair in my office sat Layla, her eyes reddened with tears, her hands roughened by housework; as for her hair and her clothes, they no longer counted for anything in brightness of appearance — and yet she is rich, with an ample yearly income.

She began to study art with my help, and she showed a mighty effort, using every particle of her energy for the work; but all she produced were pictures without imagination, with no touch of art upon them. Still, I gave her high marks for her effort — and what else could I have done, when she was burdened with scattered thoughts, despair, and bitter failure, weighing like a mountain upon her shoulders?...

"Soon I shall be an artist whose fame the caravans carry abroad" — she said this, addressing her words to me, the sweat of embarrassment streaming down her cheeks; and she went on: "Nervousness is breaking me; my husband never ceases to wound me for turning my eye from the affairs of the household; even my children pelt me with rough words past bearing; and my father-in-law's stinging criticisms make bad matters worse. I know no such thing as respect from anyone — but what do I care? Tomorrow I shall be an artist!..."

I understood that Layla was passing through an inward struggle. Could I demolish the palace of her hopes and tell her plainly that she was pursuing a deceptive idea? The situation obliged me to encourage her and strengthen her, and then to show her how to plan her life; and there are many like Layla.

Anxiety goes back to a quarrel that arises between pleasing oneself and pleasing one's family, or one's teachers and friends. The first thing a person must do to master the situation is to ask a question such as this: What do I really want from life?... And then: to reach my ambition, what is my equipment? What weapon have I made ready?

The Layla of whom I speak is the mother of four children; her husband is away on a business journey, comes home but rarely, and then for short spells shot through with quarreling and wrangling. Are there, then, any possibilities of their coming to terms? Will he value the importance of her making her way in the university toward some goal? Can she achieve anything with all the despondency and confusion that are in her? Yet she learned a lesson she will never forget: she learned that planning one's life and ordering one's hours is a person's best helper in any work whatever. And before she takes a course for her new life, she must acquaint herself with the elements and influences that have played upon her life and her thinking; and they may be summed up in family, educators, and companions.

The shakiness of her position may go back to her earliest upbringing, which stripped her of confidence in herself and of any estimate of her own capacities, so that she felt herself cast off.

No one of the company stirred when she entered. She went into another room and picked up the baby whose own father does not know him, then came back with her tears pouring, trying to hide them in the little one's wrap. She tried to take no notice of those present, and forced a smile that held a pleading question, and a hope for a dream's fulfillment; but he did not return her smile, and turned his eyes from her with a fleeting glance.

And here she is before me now, cast off, groping for a path to deliver her from her darkness. She needs to feel some measure of safety and stability, or to know that she belongs to some abode — this quite apart from a longing for tenderness and love. Is art in her? Or will he give ear to the reports of mischief from his family?

Suddenly Layla received word of his coming, after an absence of six months. She rose to make the house ready, filling every moment of her time with painting the furniture, to prepare a dwelling gleaming with brightness; and when she had finished with the furnishings, she turned to cleaning her clothes and tidying the drawers of her wardrobes. The weeks of waiting wore her out — and around her, gaping mouths waiting for food, tongues whetted like blades, and arrows of criticism that pierce to the quick...

At last came the long-awaited day of the beloved absent one's arrival. She cut every flower in the garden and decked the corners of the house; then she made him his favorite cake, and put on the dress he had sent during his absence.

"Mother — the doorbell is ringing —" All at once the children rushed to the door, crowding around their father. He is home at last; it is a dream — no, for her a frightening dream. His family walled him round, retailing every stray detail about the farm and the news of the neighborhood, and how they had spent the weeks awaiting him; and the children joined the chorus, kissing and laughing and clamoring. And in came his cousin — she who had written to him not to expect letters from Layla, for she had become an art student; as for herself, she would never neglect him — and her letter had been backed by his people's reports of how his wife leaves her children, even her little baby, to practice a silly hobby, something they call art. Yet Layla had written to him every day; will he believe their talk in spite of this? She can hardly credit it: her husband two steps away, in the same room with her, and she feels him so far off?

Unsettled, and never having tasted her parents' tenderness — this bred in her a doubt whether they were pleased that she existed; and inward confusion leads to bashfulness and obstinacy, and such a person is incapable of any positive work until confidence is restored to her soul.

The first thing she had to face was fear. So she furnished herself with occupations that gave her inward competence and ardor; she looked for people in need of help, and stretched out her hand to them; then she learned that study is a sweet adventure in which mind and body join; and at last she was convinced that learning is not from without, but is a growth from within.

When she reached this stage she overcame slips of the tongue, and envy, and malice; she came to an understanding with her enemies and with those opposed to her political or doctrinal opinions; and she found rest in the feeling of others' love.

The management of her life amounted to gathering every particle of her capacities to walk the road of the ideal; for life is a succession of fleeting flashes, costly beyond price, and it cannot be spent without a definite aim. But Layla chose her aim before she had opened her eyes, and went floundering and wrestling; and in the course of the struggle she learned how to become the woman who makes her family happy.

Here are various ways, Madam, which you can follow in planning your affairs:

1 — Put yourself in your opponent's place, and look at what confronts you through his eyes.

2 — Learn how to please yourself; and this comes by seeking knowledge, using imagination, and widening the fields of activity in work or in hobbies, so that no time is left over for yawning.

3 — Look for what gives you inward security and morale; for once you know where you stand in things, and have discovered your good qualities, and then rested assured of love and of the doing of some work, your fears melt away, no road is left for despair to enter, and you become able to face difficulties instead of fleeing before them; and this leads in turn to the ordering of your life and your home.

4 — Take up a variety of tasks; for nothing endows the soul with such competence as work bestows upon it. Give, and generously, of your time and your thought; and nothing makes a person happier than rendering a service or gladdening another soul.

5 — Know what leads to your success. For how many a soul has been wrecked upon the shores of utter failure, led there by the choice of the wrong road.

6 — Find yourself a philosophy or a creed in which you are at rest, for faith in something heartens you in every matter.

7 — And pour your energy into a single crucible; do not scatter your strength upon sundry tasks that bear no tie to your aim.

Thus you turn your gifts and your intelligence to account, and proceed with awareness and confidence to the safe harbor!