When we seek in a systematic way to educate ourself, by drawing upon both informal and formal sources, and when we creatively produce in our own work assignment, we discover that our job or economic security lies within ourself and not within our circumstances. There is no future in a job. The only future is inside oneself. We look inside rather than outside. We become producers rather than consumers of other people's production. Therefore, we have the security to go into new situations, to take on new challenges and job assignments. We know that we can come to grips with any circumstance and succeed.

We must be aware of the dangers of comparing.

"Tom, there is simply no reason for you to bring home a report card like this. If only you'd apply yourself like your brother, you could get good grades too!" This may be true, but if our children's (or our own) sense of worth and personal security comes from being compared with others, how insecure and anxious they will be - feeling superior one minute and inferior the next. Opinions, customs, fashions are fickle, always changing. There is no anchorage or security in changing things. Internal security simply does not come externally. Borrowing strength from any source that does not build and internally strengthen the borrower will internally weaken him.

Now, Instead of skill or knowledge growth, let us consider the internal growth (emotional and spiritual) of an individual. Let us say, for instance, that a particular mother is at day five intectually (to use the analogy of the six days of creation) but at day two emotionally. Everything is okay when the sun is shining or when things go well. But what happens when fatigue and/or the pressure of screaming kids, diapers, dishes and telephones join together? Or struggling with uncooperative teen-agers and a husband who is always gone?

This emotionally immature mother may find herself absolutley enslaved to the emotions of anger, impatience, and criticalness. She may find herself incapable of acting upon what she knows in her mind is right, because of the built-in, ingrained habit of losing her temper. All this adds to her guilty feeling. And yet in public, when things are going well, one may never detect this internal deficency, this emotional immaturity. She has a good mind and seems to be patient and in control.