566 THE PRINCIPLES Of SELf-CREATION
My labors on this philosophy made it necessary, many years ago,
for me to choose between immediate monetary returns, which I might
have enjoyed by directing my efforts along purely commercial lines,
and the remuneration that can be measured only in terms of the
accumulated knowledge that enables one to enjoy the world about
them more keenly.
People who engage in work that they love best do not always
have the support, in this choice, of the people closest to them.
Combating negative comments from friends and relatives has required
an alarming proportion of my energies, especially during the early
years that I was engaged in the research which has gone into this
course.
These personal references are made solely for the purpose of
showing the students of this philosophy that seldom, if ever, can
one hope to engage in the work one loves best without meeting with
obstacles of some nature. Generally, the chief obstacle is that it may
not be, as I said, the work that brings the greatest remuneration at
the start.
To offset this disadvantage, however, if you engage in the sort
of work you love, you are generally rewarded with two very decided
benefits. First, you will usually find in such work the greatest of all
rewards-happiness-which is priceless. And secondly, your actual
reward in money, when averaged over a lifetime of effort, is generally
much greater, for labor that is performed in a spirit of love is usually
greater in quantity and finer in quality than that which is performed
solely for money.
The most trying opposition to my choice of a life's work came
from my wife. Her idea was that I should accept a salaried position
which would ensure a regular monthly income, because I had shown,
by the few salaried positions I had held, that I had marketable ability
and could command an income of from $6,000 to $ 10,000 a year
without any very great effort on my part.