The Power of a Generous Nature

Inspirational Living: Life Lessons for Success & Happiness

The Living Hour

Health & Fitness, Spirituality, Self-improvement, Education, Mental Health, Religion & Spirituality

3.8 • 799 Ratings

🗓️ 16 January 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Listen to episode 974 of the Inspirational Living podcast: The Power of the Generous Nature. Edited and adapted from Our Sunday Talks by James J. Owen.

Inspirational Podcast Excerpt: One source of almost unlimited trouble in this world is in not knowing when we are well off. Our happiness depends too much on what we suppose others may think of us, and too little on what we really think of ourselves. We carry the spirit of rivalry and emulation to an extreme. In our efforts to excel our neighbors, we often overdo it and make ourselves miserable.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is an ad by BetterHelp.
0:02.4	Every January brings you 365 blank pages waiting to be filled.
0:07.3	What do you want your 2025 story to be?
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0:15.3	BetterHelp offers therapy 100% online, with a diverse network of over 30,000 therapists worldwide.
0:22.4	Visit BetterHelp, H-E-L-P-com slash New Direction Today to get 10% off your first month. Welcome to the inspirational living podcast.
0:45.5	Today's reading was edited and adapted from Our Sunday Talks by James J. Owen, published in 1883.
1:02.0	Real, downright unselfish, generous natures ought to be more numerous than they are.
1:08.1	That is, natures who can feel an unselfish joy in the prosperity of others, even though
1:14.6	their own lot may be a hard one. Some people are so constituted that they are happy only in
1:21.4	proportion as others are miserable. In other words, though they may possess a reasonable measure of wealth, and those material
1:31.1	things that are supposed by many to be wholly essential to happiness, their joy is dimmed
1:37.2	in the presence of someone who possesses a larger measure of those same material goods.
1:43.7	They must possess more than their neighbor, or else the
1:47.5	mean little cross-eyed demon of envy nestles in their bosoms and robs them of their peace of mind.
1:56.3	It requires no great amount of magnanimity of character to be generous to the downtrodden.
2:02.7	But it does really take a large nature to be charitable and unselfishly generous towards the
2:08.2	ostentatious and purse-proud, those people whose only merit is in the husk and not the
2:14.9	colonel. We can all be generous towards the dead. Even those who in life
2:21.2	we cared the least for, and who were least worthy of our respect, call forth a heartthrob of
2:27.9	sympathy now that they are gone. It is only then that we think of their virtues, and even chide ourselves for not being more
2:36.6	generous to their imperfections when living.
	...

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