“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

It was no coincidence, however, that you plunged into reading the New York papers during your stay in bed. Not that it is intended that you should close your eyes to world events, but that in your particular case there are times when, to you, such concentration upon world evils becomes extremely unwholesome.

Your reactions at such times are not good for yourself, and your reactions are not good at such times for the conditions which bring them about. Such reactions actually worsen the conditions that you would change. I am not suggesting that you adopt a bland, idiotic, male Pollyanna smile, nor that you shout love, prosperity and health from the rooftops while the world below is steeped in poverty and ignorance.

Your attitude was, in some manner, more realistic than Ruburt’s, and yet his attitude was the healthier. Both of you went too far in opposite directions, as is characteristic of your own natures: you are sometimes inclined, and underline sometimes, to be overly pessimistic; and Ruburt is sometimes inclined to be not overly optimistic but overly docile, as far as his connections with the outside world are concerned.

You of all people should realize that when valid concern for world problems turns into an obsession with world injustices that wipes out all, or threatens to wipe out all personal enjoyment, then trouble is on the way. For enjoyment is a weapon. The man who is capable of joy is capable, to a large extent, of changing his world. Joy is not a weak spineless idiot either. Its backbone is stronger than bitterness.