We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
^REAT jb ay!
By JANE PORTERFIELD
• Heard on Mutual, Jane Porterfield of "True Romances" magazine, points out that the fruits of quiet and solitude and thought often outweigh the most frantic activity.
THE most successful man I ever knew was also the laziest. John Trainor — to give him a name that isn't his — has a positive dislike of making the smallest motion that isn't absolutely necessary. His wife despairs of ever getting him to fix that stuck vidndow or shake up the furnace — though John will waste plenty of energy playing baseball with the kids. His idea of bliss is to sit down and stay there. If he can lie down, so much the better.
But there's one part of John that's always busy. That's his mind. He's usually figuring out how he can in' vent work'saving gadgets which will permit him to be even lazier. Some' times he's had to work hard to be lazy, but he swears it's worth it. That man's fund of ingenuity — as with most Americans — is inexhaiast' ible. As a result of his thoughtful brand of laziness, John Trainor has made himself one of the most success' ful practical scientists and inventors in the country. You'd know him at once, if I could tell you his name — and you'd say, "Lazy? He? I don't believe it!"
This man has learned that the fruits of quiet and solitude and thought often outweigh the most frantic ac tivity. Americans have an idea that you have to keep busy. Get things done. Keep moving. Hustle! Hurry up, there! We don't stop often enough to think: "Well, j\ist what are we doing? What kind of lives are we leading, anyway?"
You should see how this trait in us amazes another sort of American. I mean our neighbors to the South. I'm lucky enough to have a fairly wide acquaintance with Latin Americans. They admit that our industry, our ceaseless practicality, has made us a great and developed nation. "But," they say wonderingly, "you North Americans don't take time to live!"
The first time I heard that, it stopped me dead in my tracks. There's something in it, you know. I've heard that criticism many, many times since. Said in all friendliness, it's the South American verdict on us. It's John Trainer's verdict. The verdict of many thoughtful Americans who'd rather have a little less money, a little less success — and a little more