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Listen to episode 77 of the Inspirational Living podcast: The Bright Side of Life (Guide for a Rational Optimist). Edited and adapted from Character Building by Booker T. Washington.

Educational Podcast Excerpt: If you want to be happy, if you want to live a contented life, if you want to live a life of genuine pleasure, do something for somebody else. When you feel unhappy, disagreeable, and miserable, go to someone else who is miserable and do that person an act of kindness, and you will find that you will be made happy.

The miserable persons in this world are the ones whose hearts are narrow and hard; the happy ones are those who have great big hearts. Such persons are always happy. Now, this is not to say, you won’t have difficulties, nor face obstacles and discouragement. You most certainly will. But I would suggest to you that such difficulties, as an element in life, are for a purpose.

I do not believe that anything, any element of your lives, is put there without a purpose. I believe that every effort that we are obliged to make to overcome obstacles gives us strength, and also a confidence in ourselves that nothing else can give us.