This I Believe

This I Believe Essay:

Like many English people, I rather shrink from any public affirmation of my beliefs. But I cannot easily distinguish a statement of what I believe from the aims that I set before myself and the things which sustain me in trouble. To me, there is nothing more deep rooted than but we are under an obligation as to how we should live our lives. You can express this by saying that certain actions are right and others wrong, or you can call it a belief in a spiritual order of things, which gives a value and a meaning to our actions that they would not otherwise possess. It was from the example of those among whom one was brought up that, as a child, one first learned to see spiritual things expressed in terms of human conduct, and that as a young man one first formed a picture of the kind of person one wished to be.

No doubt, the qualities which one most respects change as one becomes older. Today I put highest courage, patience, and tolerance; the desire and capacity to understand one’s fellows and to serve them; the determination to stick to the best in a relentless pursuit of the truth. Much of my working life is spent in trying to find out why certain things happen, in testing arguments, and in assessing what is likely to come to pass if a certain course is decided upon. No one can hope for even a fair measure of success in such work unless he sets about it with an almost crusading zeal to find but truth, and a most scrupulous regard for it when found.

As I see it then, we all have a duty to set before ourselves a pattern of life which reflects, as far as each of us may, something of a spiritual and otherworldly. That those who live their lives in the spirit give much comfort to their fellows is clear enough, but the obligation goes deeper than that. Again, it seems to me that, in some way that I do not pretend to understand, these ideals of conduct and the ideas that inspire them have in themselves something of lasting value. They have about them some element of durability, while things of the opposite kind—mean and cowardly conduct—carry within themselves the seeds of their own frustration.

If I have given the impression of a rather abstract and cold faith, that impression is false. For I could never persuade myself that all the beauty of this world, all the joys of human companionship or the delights which one finds in the loveliness of a countryside; all the wonders that man has contrived, whether in the making of simple things and music and the arts; I could never persuade myself that all this beauty has no part in the scheme of things and that we were not intended to take our delight in it to the full, and that we and others are not better, as we would say, for so doing.

This is a theme on which many of the philosophers and poets have written. But what is the nature of the link between these things and the obligations that I began by speaking of? That I cannot tell you. But I am sure that the link exists.

Biographical Sketch by Edward R. Murrow:

Sir Edward Bridges is the head of the British Civil Service and Permanent Secretary to the Treasury. Both jobs are demanding, but he has a reputation for being an extremely hard worker. He is said to start work at nine in the morning, and continue until midnight. During the week, he sleeps in a room adjoining his office. On weekends he joins his wife and four children at their home near Epsom. He is the son of the late Poet Laureate of England, Robert Bridges. Sir Edward himself chose to follow a career in civil service. During the War, he was secretary to the British War Cabinet.