George Matthew Adams: PLAY

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

PLAY

Gettysburg Times - Mar 25, 1926

PLAY

By George Matthew Adams

Play occupies a greater part in the real happines of life than almost any other element.

The man or woman who gives all his time to work and no play early grows cramped and sour. Play takes youth by the hand and leads it into middle life and touches old age with beauty, giving a striking and gorgeous beauty to all life as the summer clouds make opals amongst the rays of the dying sun.

No time to play? Isn't it life for which we live? Isn't happiness the goal of all our ambitions? And what a worker play makes of a man!

On the other hand, work may be made largely play. The most trying and strenuous job in the world is that of President of the United States. Yet when President Roosevelt was about to retire, after two of the most strenuous terms in history, he grinned and said: "I've had a bully time!" It is too bad that the world had to lose so great a man so soon. I don't believe that Roosevelt would ever have grown old.

Tennis, horse-back riding, boxing, affairs of state and of the world—these were a part of the daily life of Roosevelt. (And hunting in parts of half a dozen countries thrown in for a vacation time.)

Youth should be taught that work must be made a part of play, and that all work really can be made play.

The healthy and wholesome city is that one which devotes most to the recreational phase of its community.

College life would be dull and drab without play. "I love my work." That attitude is what gives zest and happiness to any worker.

Let's never forget how and when to play!

George Matthew Adams was a newspaper columnist, author, writer, philosopher and publisher who founded the Adams Newspaper Service in 1907. He is the author of several books and "You Can" is the most famous of his works.

Mr. Adams became a well-know columnist with his "Today's Talk" which was a kind of short essay he would write for sundry newspapers and had an inspirational appeal for the average American citizen of the time. His syndicate supplied features to many newspapers worldwide for more than fifty years.

Furthermore, it is known that Mr. Adams owned a collection of rare etchings and more than 5000 books, many of them first editions.

Mr. Adams on etchings:

"Etchings early appealed to me because of their intimate character. Some of them seem to have been etched from the heart."

Mr Adams on books:

"I walk all over many of the books I read. Anyone who comes across them after I am through with them will see my tracks. That is, my pencil tracks, which, in reality are the tracks of my mind at it travels through a book."

"I am certain that anything with the word book attached to it will ever be interesting and fascinating to me."

George Matthew Adams passed away on 1962.

QUOTES BY GEORGE MATTHEW ADAMS:

* He who does not get fun and enjoyment out of every day ... needs to reorganize his life.

* If you have nothing else to do, look about you and see if there isn't something close at hand that you can improve! It may make you wealthy, though it is more likely that it will make you happy.

* Note how good you feel after you have encouraged someone else. No other argument is necessary to suggest that never miss the opportunity to give encouragement.

* No matter what our ambition, that ambition must be fed, daily, without a break. Desires vanish quickly, unless they are fed.

* The hero becomes a hero because he put something into the world that we would like to have put there.

* We cannot waste time. We can only waste ourselves.

* Each day can be one of triumph if you keep up your interests.

* Just be yourself and you will not only be unique in a large way, but you will be an honest expression of a human being.

* Books express much of the personality of the author, so that we often feel we know him, in a rather intimate fashion.

* Devotion to the simple things of life, and to beauty, is what ennobles character and puts a glow to the very countenance. You can always tell from the smile of a person whether there is happiness imbedded in the heart.

* I WISH there were not so many unhappy people in the world. Cheerfulness is power and something that feeds the soul.

* Every human being should be free to choose his own way of life, and select his own sphere of influence, just as long as he does not encroach upon the same individual rights of his fellow man.

* It's what each of us shows, and how, that gives to us character and prestige. Seeds of kindness, goodwill, and human understanding, planted in fertile soil, spring up into deathless friendships, big deeds of worth, and a memory that will not soon fade.

* If love is the greatest thing in the world, then hate is the greatest evil, for hate is the opposite of love. Love attracts, hate repels. Love is life, hate is death. Hate is the worst waste that can enter a human soul.

* If newspapers printed nothing but news, the readers would be sour and depressed.

* It is fine to forgive and forget so far as in your power lies, but to be highly tuned to the receipt of beautiful words from a warm and understanding heart is to own one of the finest gifts God gives to human beings.

* He who understands does not resent. Resentment is the play of little minds.

* It is better to aim for Perfection and miss it, than to aim at Imperfection and hit it.

* Opportunity is kinder to folks than folks are to it. Is it in the cycle of events that a man should not be used too hard, but that chance after chance should be given him to prove his worth—only to allow him to fail after his mettle has proved too unworthy.

* Every one of us, unconsciously, works out a personal philosophy of life, by which we are guided, inspired, and corrected, as time goes on. It is this philosophy by which we measure out our days, and by which we advertise to all about us the man, or woman, that we are. . . . It takes but a brief time to scent the life philosophy of anyone. It is defined in the conversation, in the look of the eye, and in the general mien of the person. It has no hiding place. It's like the perfume of the flower — unseen, but known almost instantly. It is the possession of the successful, and the happy. And it can be greatly embellished by the absorption of ideas and experiences of the useful of this earth.

* Each day of your life, as soon as you open your eyes in the morning, you can square away for a happy and successful day. It's the mood and the purpose at the inception of each day that are the important facts in charting your course for the day. We can always square away for a fresh start, no matter what the past has been. It's today that is the paramount problem always. Yesterday is but history.