A Sense of the Fitness of Things
Uranda October 14, 1947 100 Mile House, B.C.
If I were required to name one thing that marks the line of division between the people that are pleasing and the people that are unpleasing, between the people whose potentialities have meaning and the people whose potentialities are meaningless, it would be either the presence of, or the lack of, a sense of the fitness of things—and that, actually, whenever there is a lack of a sense of the fitness of things there is a consequent imposition that is either worked around or accepted, when there is fundamentally no necessity of it, or something that produces reaction of some sort, something that makes the imposition the problem. The shortcomings in other ways, and the limitations in individuals, seldom create much of a problem as long as the individual functions on the basis of a sense of the fitness of things. He can have practically no talents or abilities; he can have all kinds of other things; but he can fit in and be used to advantage—but a person with all kinds of talents and abilities who does not have a sense of the fitness of things is always stirring up trouble by reason of his impositions that cause strife and disturbance.
It is not the basic reactions and limitations or problems or inabilities, say, as to whether he can play a piano or drive a nail or repair an automobile or not—the only way that a person can fit into any program, however, with real effectiveness and dependability, regardless of his talents, great or small, is on the basis of his sense of the fitness of things. Those who have it can be used effectively and those who do not cannot be used effectively, regardless of anything else. That one thing draws a line of division through the whole human family, and it is the consequent impositions when a person does not have a sense of the fitness of things that cause most of the difficulties. If you try to point it out to them, they very often get highly insulted. Basically that is the barometer, or compass, in relationship to my attitude toward people. If I can assist an individual into a sense of the fitness of things, and I see signs of his growing in that respect, I have faith and confidence in him. If I cannot begin to draw that out when it is lacking, there is nothing to put faith in, regardless of his talents or anything else.
Then there is the other point with respect to maturity in that sense, because age in the sense of years really does not have anything to do with it, except that sometimes with the passage of time people do let it develop—but maturity in the sense of harmonization with Reality, regardless of age in the ordinary sense, is always evident in relationship to the individual sense of the fitness of things. It is the gauge, so to speak. An immature person in that sense, who might be sixty years old, would be of no more dependability than a child, and have to be looked after all the time to keep him out of trouble, but a young person with that sense of the fitness of things is dependable and mature, and you do not have to watch him every second to keep him out of trouble and keep him from stirring up difficulties of some sort.
I was thinking that the shortcomings or limitations in people in other respects are seldom any real problem. They may have to be calculated and worked out, but they do not become real difficulties because there is something you can calculate on. But where there is no sense of the fitness of things, great talents have to go unused, and the lesser talents have to be used, perhaps, in individuals who are beginning to have that sense of the fitness of things. So, it is that one thing that is in back of all our real coordination and management and accomplishment—a sense of the fitness of things. A sense of the fitness of things gives the individual perspective. Proportions mean something to him. A person without the sense of the fitness of things is always classifying some minor point as being major, and some major point as being minor.
© Emissaries of Divine Light
