This world is slovenly, sinful, and evil because so many of us are
content with the past or the future, with myth or with imagination, and
fail to demand the development of the good that is our heritage to-day.
The better day comes not by dreams, but by each man doing the best he
can and securing all the good he can for his own day.

We need to give up the plan of saving the world by the piety of
postponed pleasures and to find the fullness of life in the present, to
get below the surface of things and discover life's real riches, to
interpret this daily toil and struggle, and all this world of ours, in
terms of the divine and infinite.

How much it would mean to our lives if we might learn, instead of
sighing for the impossible, to get all the sweetness and joy that is in
the things we have, how rich we would find the common lot to be, how
many things that now seem dreary and empty would bloom into new beauty.
In a child's smile, a wild flower's fragrance, a glint of sunlight,
things possible to all, we would find joys unspeakable and full of
glory.

This does not mean dull content with things as they are; it does mean
the development of the faculties of appreciation, the growth of the
life in power to see, the development of vision. It means the
transformation of the dull earth with the glory of the ideal.

Some day, when we look back over our lives, how keen will be our regret
as we realize what we have missed, how we have spurned the substance of
life's lasting treasures, human loves, friendships, every-day beauties,
and happiness, while chasing the shadows of imaginary joys.