The Man Who Plans to Live Forever – Sunday, June 08, 1941
If you want to know how far you can trust a man, you must know at least two things about him. First, you must know what he believes—what his standards are, and then you must know how devoted he is to those standards and under what circumstances he would deviate from them.
Every man has a set of rules which are a guide to the conduct of his life—a set of principles to which he adheres or from which he departs, and the behavior of men varies greatly according to the code they have inherited or adopted. For example, the man who believes that honesty is an eternal principle is much safer than the man who believes that honesty is merely a good business policy because it works to his advantage.
The man who believes that virtue is a divine injunction is much safer than the man who believes that virtue is merely a social convention, and who is, therefore, virtuous only under those conditions and at those times prescribed by changing custom. He who is going a journey of a thousand miles will conduct himself in a manner quite unlike he who is going a journey of only one mile. Unwise planning and foolish ways are not so serious for a venture of one mile as for a thousand. Likewise, the man who sincerely believes himself to be an eternal being whose individual identity has no end, would be inclined to live in may respects quite different from the man who is convinced that death is an eternal blackout. He who has his eyes on a short journey and a definite end might well decide to get everything he can from everyone he can, regardless of consequences, because time is short and, to his way of thinking, a final disposition awaits him. But he who has his eyes fixed on everlasting life is more inclined to build broad foundations and conform to high thinking, because to him friends constitute a relationship that will last always—to him a family is an everlasting possession and to him someone wronged is a very real consideration, because here or hereafter the wrong must be righted.
While it is true that some men with high principles may, by weakness of character or stress of circumstances, depart from them, and disappoint us, it is also true that he who does not have high principles to begin with has no common ground of trust to offer, except his own immediate advantage. That is why, when you desire to impose trust in someone, it is important to know what he believes. And the man who lives his life as though he expected to continue forever, finds richer experience, surer friendships, greater peace, a more certain happiness, and is safer in many significant ways that he who gambles his chances against the end of something that will never end.
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June 08, 1941
Broadcast Number 0,616