Welcome to the Inspirational Living podcast. Today we are going to revisit a Christmas reading from last year, an adaptation from the classic holiday book,

The Feast of Saint Friend by Arnold Bennett, where the author discusses friendship

and the timeless gift of goodwill. Children divide their adult acquaintances into two categories.

Those who sympathize with them in this bizarre and trying adventure called life,

and those who don't.

The second category is the much larger of the two.

Very many people belong to it who think that they belong to the first.

They may deceive themselves, but they cannot deceive a child.

Although you may easily practice upon the credulity of a child in matters of fact,

you cannot cheat their moral and social judgment.

They will add you up, and they will add anybody up,

and estimate your conduct upon principles of their own, and in a manner terribly impartial.

Parents have no sterner nor more discerning critics than their own children.

And so you may be polite to a child and pretend to appreciate their point of view, but unless

you really do put yourself to the trouble of understanding them, unless you

throw yourself by the exercise of imagination into their world, you will not succeed in being

their friend. To be their friend means an effort on your part. It means that you must divest yourself of your own mental

habits and for the time being adopt theirs. No nice phrases, no gifts of money, candy, or

toys can take the place of this effort and this sacrifice of self. With five minutes of genuine surrender to a child,

you can win more of their esteem and gratitude than $500 would buy.

Their notion of real goodwill is the imaginative sharing of their feelings,

a convinced participation in their pains and pleasures.

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