21

This is perhaps the greatest truth in the world, and the one most persistently disbelieved. Happiness, said Carlyle, is as the value of a common fraction, which results from dividing the numerator by the denominator. The fools are eternally trying to get happiness by multiplying the numerator, the wise divide the denominator. They both come to the same--only one you can do and the other is impossible. If you have only one thousand dollars and think you ought to have two thousand dollars, the answer is one thousand divided by two thousand, which is one half. Go and get another thousand and you have two thousand divided by two thousand, which is one; you have doubled your contentment. But the trouble is that in human affairs as you multiply your numerator you unconsciously multiply your denominator at the same time, and you get nowhere. By the time your supply reaches two thousand dollars your wants have risen to twenty-five hundred dollars.