Many people today are dissatisfied with life and profoundly dissatisfied with themselves. Of course, there are good reasons for being dissatisfied. If each succeeding generation were not creatively discontent, things would become static and progress would stop. But the dissatisfaction of many people today is underscored by something that has pathological overtones to it. There is widespread exasperation, ranging all the way from common irritation and annoyance to dramatic life failures. Untold thousands of people are reaching for better ways to better days.

Thousands of people who have never heard the authentic word on how to live life have taken roads that lead only to dead ends. So, how can you bring about better days? The Bible writers tell it like it is. I quote from a new version, called Good News for Modern Man: "Whoever wants to enjoy life and have happy days must no longer speak evil, and must stop telling lies. He must turn away from evil and do good." There it is, take it or leave it. If you want to be happy, if you want to have good days, just skip the evil and go for the good. The evil is wrong. And when you do wrong, everything goes wrong. The good is right. And when you do right, things turn out right. The Bible does not guarantee freedom from pain, sorrow, trouble, difficulty, and heartache, but it does promise inner happiness and good days.

Be Honest

One of the better ways to live is to live honestly. How many people do live with absolute honesty? Have you ever been completely honest with yourself? Have you ever told yourself the whole truth about yourself? Have you ever faced yourself, not as you think you are, but as you really are? How long has it been since you made an appraisal of your strengths and your weaknesses? Do you know whether you are deteriorating or whether you are growing? Are you a better, more confident, more knowledgeable person now than you were 10 years ago?

Honesty is the first principle for having better ways to better days. A good thing to do is to sit down with yourself and ask, What is my worst weakness? Don't ask your wife or your husband. Just ask yourself, "What is my chief fault?" When you find it, then study it. There it is. Maybe you have had it for years. Maybe it is the thing that has been holding you back from better days. But, once having isolated it, once having faced it honestly, you can decide what you are going to do about it. A person who is really honest with himself and has isolated his faults can do something about them. Once a real fault is out of your way, what better days you can have!

The greatest person in the world is an absolutely honest person. When you can help another human become honest with himself, he is on the way to having something happen to him.

For example, I once exchanged letters with a medical doctor who lived near Nashville, Tennessee. He wrote:

"I have read every article by you that has appeared in my local paper, and I wonder how many people are more unhappy in their lives, more mixed-up, after reading them.

"The trouble is, you say that whenever anything goes wrong all you need to do is to pray about it and have faith and everything will turn out right. Now I don't agree with you. I think in this life you either get the breaks or you don't get them, and that a lot of people who don't get them could have done just as much good if not better with the same breaks as the people who got them.

"I don't think or believe that any Supreme Being has a thing in the world to do with any of it. You and your talks lead a man to think that prayer and faith can do absolutely anything. I want to tell you that is a lot of bunk, and you know it."

Now when I read this letter, I didn't like it too much. But then I got to thinking, "Here is an honest man." One week later, I wrote him back:

"It was very nice of you to write to me. Even though you take exception to my articles, and in fact are aggressively opposed to them, nevertheless I was glad to hear from you. I have never been the type of person who likes a "yes man." In fact, I would almost rather get the kind of letter you wrote than a complimentary one.

"I would just like you to know, Doctor, that I absolutely believe what I write. It is not written out of theory, but on a basis of facts which I have observed and personally experienced. You are a scientific man, and I will guarantee that if you will put these principles into practice with an open mind, an objective attitude, they will work for you also."

We developed a nice correspondence. Then one night I went to Nashville and made a speech there. Afterwards, back home, I received this letter:

"I'm writing you this short letter between patients. I was in Nashville last night and had the pleasure of hearing your lecture.

"This thing called power and faith I have put to work and, believe me, it works. Some of the results you get are absolutely uncanny. I can't believe some of the things that have happened; still, they did happen. I just wanted to drop you this note to tell you that prayer and faith absolutely work."

The point I want to make is that even though this man had a hostile attitude, it was evident that he was honest. He wasn't satisfied with what he was. He knew his faults. He wanted to be a different individual. He was reaching for something better, and he fought back because he was being challenged. We recognized this honesty and liked him for it—in fact, loved him for it. As a result, he found better ways to better days. So, suggestion number one is: Be absolutely honest.

Be Yourself

The next thing is to be absolutely unstereotyped. Now what in the world do I mean by that? Just this: each human being is born as an individual. But as we grow from infancy to childhood and young manhood or womanhood we get rolled together into a mass. We are taught to talk alike, to think alike, to act alike, with little or no variation from the standard, and the result is that the lilting, growth-seeking personality is stultified and frustrated. We tend to become what we read in the newspapers or what we see on television. We pick up the jargon of the day. We dress according to the styles some character in Paris happens to think up to sell more clothes. They keep varying the styles to sell more goods, and we all follow along docilely.

This present generation of Americans, I honestly believe, is the most standardized we have ever had. For example, one day I was in Chicago giving a speech across from the Federal Building, where the trial of the so-called Chicago Seven was going on. And after the speech I went with a group of people to the Union League Club for lunch. On our way to the club we passed the Federal Building, where a crowd of about 100 people was demonstrating. If ever I saw standardization it was there. I looked the crowd over for one single deviation, and couldn't find any. They were completely standardized, completely stereotyped.

Then I proceeded to the sedate Union League Club—a home, I presume, of the Establishment to which the demonstrators in the street were opposed—and sat around a table with twelve people. Still having in my mind the stereotyped youths, I examined the stereotyped older generation. The three women present all wore conservative dresses. And the men, every one of them, had on a blue suit, a dark tie, and a white shirt.

What a pity that human beings should become victims of this tendency! Actually it doesn't matter a whole lot what you wear on your body, so long as it's an expression of your individuality and not subservient stereotypedness that crushes the personality. So if you want better days, a better way to get them is to be firmly and freely yourself. God could have stamped out a lot of faces like Coca-Cola bottletops, but He gave each of us an individuality different from anybody else's. So be your own great wonderful self.

We all, deep down, are reaching to burst out from behind our masks and be the released people that we know in our hearts we can be. You are a free spirit. You must not let anything hold you down—your weaknesses or disappointments or prejudices. You must take wings and live free—and be on your way to better days.  

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