You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life

by Eleanor Roosevelt

To show a lack of respect for another person’s customs is fatal to any enduring or self-respecting relationship.

Surely it is a small thing to do, to acknowledge and respect the customs and habits of another. And it brings with it a rich harvest of mutual esteem and liking.

People want the same things. They strive for the same things. They suffer from the same things. The differences are important but often superficial. The basic things are similar.

WE ALL create the person we become by our choices as we go through life. In a very real sense, by the time we are adult, we are the sum total of the choices we have made.

The kind of self-reliance I have in mind goes farther than mere responsibility for oneself. Each of us, ultimately, is responsible in large part for the welfare of his community, for the kind of government he has, for the world he lives in.

“It wasn’t my fault.” That is an almost instinctive reaction to failure of any kind. But this is the point of cleavage between the mature and the immature individual. The mature person will admit, “It was my fault. The mistake was of my own making. Now that I understand why it happened, why I made the wrong choice, I’ll try not to make the same mistake again.”

There is no human growth without the acceptance of responsibility and I think it should be developed as soon as it reasonably can be.

Too often, men or women who feel that this attitude is wrong will remain silent; they will not protest, they will not stand up to be counted. They are afraid of losing popularity or social prestige. They haven’t the courage of their convictions, they refuse to take any responsibility for the situation.

takes honesty and courage to accept the full responsibility when your first choice has been wrong; it takes honesty and courage to acknowledge that the fault was yours and you have no excuses to make.

Just as all living is adjustment and readjustment, so all choice, to some extent, must be compromise between reality and a dream of perfection.

Over and over, I have seen, under the most improbable circumstances, that man can remake himself, that he can even remake his world if he cares enough to try.

Surely, in the light of history, it is more intelligent to hope rather than to fear, to try rather than not to try. For one thing we know beyond all doubt: Nothing has ever been achieved by the person who says, “It can’t be done.”

Therefore, every single one of us must learn, as early as possible, to understand and accept our duties as a citizen.

The minimum, the very basic minimum, of a citizen’s duty is to cast a vote on election day. Even now, too few of us discharge this minimal duty.

to vote intelligently.

We must, for the most part, rely for much of our information on four main sources: the President of the United States, who is, or should be, the great educator of the people, bringing issues to them and explaining the situation; the great mass media of communication, newspapers, radio, television, which are, or should be, vehicles for bringing unbiased reports of news events, economic and political conditions; the the commentators who are, or should be, analysts of the news, of economics, of contemporary history, of political leaders, based on a wider source of information and a broader experience than the average voter can possibly have; and discussion, frank and open, no

holds barred, on men and policies with friends and neighbors.

It is not only important but mentally invigorating to discuss political matters with people whose opinions differ radically from one’s own.

By having to frame your ideas and beliefs in words, you are forced to crystallize, to clarify them for yourself.

Of course, if you merely defend your opinion without re-examination, any discussion is quite pointless.

Getting at the facts. Learning to see for ourselves what our institutions are and how they function. This is a part of the duty of a citizen.

Thomas Jefferson said that individual responsibility for the well-being of the community as a whole was an absolutely necessary ingredient to success in a democracy.