Mrs.William T.Moon，who operates the Moon Secretarial School，521Fifth Avenue，New York，didn’t have to spend two weeks thinking how she could please someone in order to banish her melancholy.She went Alfred Adler one better—no，shewent Adler thirteen better.She banished her melancholy，not in fourteen days，but in one day，by thinking how she could please a couple of orphans.It happened like this：
“In December，five years ago，”said Mrs.Moon，“I was engulfed in a feeling of sorrow and self-pity.After several years of happy married life，I had lost my husband.As the Christmas holidays approached，my sadness deepened.I had never spent a Christmas alone in all my life；and I dreaded to see this Christmas come.Friends had invited me to spend Christmas with them.But I did not feel up to any gaiety.I knew I would be a wet blanket at any party.So，I refused their kind invitations.As Christmas Eve approached，I was more and more overwhelmed with self-pity.True，I should have been thankful for many things，as all of us have many things for which to be thankful.The day before Christmas，I left my office at three o’clock in the afternoon and started walking aimlessly up Fifth Avenue，hoping that I might banish my self-pity and melancholy.The avenue was jammed with gay and happy crowds-scenes that brought back memories of happy years that were gone.I just couldn’t bear the thought of going home to a lonely and empty apartment.I was bewildered.I didn’t know what to do.I couldn’t keep the tears back.After walking aimlessly for an hour or so，I found myself in front of a bus terminal.I remembered that my husband and I had often boarded an unknown bus for adventure，so I boarded the first bus I found at the station.After crossing the Hudson River and riding for some time，I heard the bus conductor say：‘Last stop，lady.’I got off.I didn’t even know the name of the town.It was a quiet，peaceful little place.While waiting for the next bus home，I started walking up a residential street.As I passed a church，I heard the beautiful strains of ‘silent Night’.I went in.The church was empty except for the organist.I sat down unnoticed in one of the pews.The lights from the gaily decorated Christmas treemade the decorations seem like myriads of stars dancing in the moonbeams.The long-drawn cadences of the music—and the fact that I had forgotten to eat since morning—made me drowsy.I was weary and heavy-laden，so I drifted off to sleep.
“When I awoke，I didn’t know where I was.I was terrified.I saw in front of me two small children who had apparently come in to see the Christmas tree.One，a little girl，was pointing at me and saying：‘I wonder if Santa Clause brought her’.These children were also frightened when I awoke.I told them that I wouldn’t hurt them.They were poorly dressed.I asked them where their mother and daddy were.‘We ain’t got no mother and daddy，’they said.Here were two little orphans much worse off than I had ever been.They made me feel ashamed of my sorrow and self-pity.I showed them the Christmas tree and then took them to a drugstore and we had some refreshments，and I bought them some candy and a few presents.My loneliness vanished as if by magic.These two orphans gave me the only real happiness and self-forgetfulness that I had had in months.As I chatted with them，I realised how lucky I had been.I thanked God that all my Christmases as a child had been bright with parental love and tenderness.Those two little orphans did far more for me than I did for them.That experience showed me again the necessity of making other people happy in order to be happy ourselves.I found that happiness is contagious.By giving，we receive.By helping someone and giving out love，I had conquered worry and sorrow and self-pity，and felt like a new person.And I was a new person—not only then，but in the years that followed.”
I could fill a book with stories of people who forgot themselves into health and happiness.For example，let’s take the case of Margaret Tayler Yates，one of the most popular women in the United States Navy.
Mrs.Yates is a writer of novels，but none of her mystery storiesis half so interesting as the true story of what happened to her that fateful morning when the Japanese struck our fleet at Pearl Harbour.Mrs.Yates had been an invalid for more than a year：a bad heart.She spent twenty-two out of every twentyfour hours in bed.The longest journey that she undertook was a walk into the garden to take a sunbath.Even then，she had to lean on the maid’s arm as she walked.She herself told me that in those days she expected to be an invalid for the balance of her life.
“I would never have really lived again，”she told me，“if the Japs had not struck Pearl Harbour and jarred me out of my complacency.“When this happened，”Mrs.Yates said，as she told her story，“everything was chaos and confusion.One bomb struck so near my home，the concussion threw me out of bed.Army trucks rushed out to Hickam Field，Scofield Barracks，and Kaneohe Bay Air Station，to bring Army and Navy wives and children to the public schools.There the Red Cross telephoned those who had extra rooms to take them in.The Red Cross workers knew that I had a telephone beside my bed，so they asked me to be a clearing-house of information.So I kept track of where Army and Navy wives and children were being housed，and all Navy and Army men were instructed by the Red Cross to telephone me to find outwhere their families were.
“I soon discovered that my husband，Commander Robert Raleigh Yates，was safe.I tried to cheer up the wives who did not know whether their husbands had been killed；and I tried to give consolation to the widows whose husbands had been killed-and they were many.Two thousand，one hundred and seventeen officers and enlisted men in the Navy and Marine Corps were killed and 960were reported missing.