A Key to Happiness

By James T. Mangan

To help others, you don’t have to be an efficient expert in the art; the main thing is the intention. You may be crude and clumsy, wasteful and ineffective, but if you sincerely try to help, your attempt produces nothing but good. The one you are trying to help knows your intention and is strengthened and encouraged by the magic of your sharing. In nearly every case, your simple desire to help, converted into action, produces the good sought. But perhaps the greatest good is the good that you yourself get out of the attempt. Service to others delivers more joy to you than the joy you deliver to them. In doing good, you free yourself from the terrible burden of self; you escape from yourself into a clean world of joy and light. The good you simply try to do, regardless of the outcome, is always a success inside yourself.

Unselfish giving is your most efficient formula for happiness, for you have embraced Eternity instead of Self; you have felt Life, and you are now the world bigger than you were before you began the project.

Vocabulary:
· crude a.粗魯的，粗俗的
· clumsy a. 笨拙的
· in an attempt to V
· attempt to V
· nothing but + N = only N 除了….都沒；只有/是
· convert A into B 將A轉變為B
· 人+ convert to + 宗教 某人皈依某宗教
· embrace vt. 擁抱
· eternity n.永恆；漫長的時間
· eternal a.永恆的