Winter 1981

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Few men combine psychological and spiritual insight with the force and breadth of Paul Tournier. The Strong and the Weak and other books he has written have dealt in various ways with this issue's theme of "success."

For this article, we selected portions from his book The Adventure of Living, in which he considers our inner selves and our true drives for success, revealing some of his own struggles as well.

The joy of adventure is an anticipation of the joy of success. One pursues an adventure joyfully and effectively so long as one has not lost all hope of success.

The joy of success! Think of the joy a person has when he passes a difficult examination-or even one that is not very difficult! At the time it seems to eclipse everything else. For a moment the world, life, and all other problems fade away. The joy of success is everything. On the other hand, consider a person who is not enjoying success. I often see such cases. A student is terrified of failing in an examination for which he is nevertheless well prepared. He realizes quite well that his panic is unhealthy. But it is after his success that the sign of his illness is most clearly seen, in his incapacity to enjoy it. His success he feels to be an unmerited quirk of fortune which does nothing to reassure him on the subject of his personal worth. Truth to tell, I get far more pleasure from his success than he does himself!

Consider also the pleasure we can derive from the tiniest compliment from some important personage or someone whom we love. Much of the way we behave, even our protestation when we are complimented and our affectation of modesty, is a veiled means of soliciting compliments. A wife sighs loudly while washing the dishes; it is not ...

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