Los Banos Rotary Club History
Says Understanding Is Keynote Of Life

Understanding, plus a good sense of humor, plus personal confidence is the keynote to successful living in today's turbulent, tension-plagued world, says Golden Driggs, Fresno insurance executive.

In a talk to members of the local Rotary Club here Tuesday of last week, Driggs, manager of New York Life Insurance Co's Fresno division, gave these three things as the most essential virtues in the continual search for a well balanced and happy life.

"I've often noticed," he said, "that people who have forgot how to whistle and to laugh, never appear to be happy. And there isn't enough whistling today! We are taking life too seriously, we become too tense with our problems, both personal and business. Relax, Smile a little whistle. And the world will be a better place for both you and me to live in."

Extending the same thinking to the world of business Driggs closely, quoted Dr. Kenneth McFarland, lecturer and consultant to General Motors Corporation, from a talk recently given at a gathering of management and labor in Pasadena. McFarland said that the greatest need o mankind today is the ability to sit down and talk things over, sanely and intelligently. "Remember," McFarland told his labor-capitol audience, "You are all on the same ship—you can't afford to let it sink, you can't afford to sink it yourself. Understanding and cooperation with the other fellow is your only chance of survival."

Still quoting McFarland, Driggs told of a recent extensive survey among businesses as to the major causes of why men lose their jobs or fail to earn promotions, intemperance, immortality and laziness. Ninety-five per cent of all causes, he said, are from these sources, with intemperance ranking as the greatest.

Immorality, he said, is the second largest cause of human career failure, due simply to the fact that persons who have a trouble at home are not mentally capable of doing a good job at the office or in their skilled field of career endeavor.

Of laziness, McFarland was quoted as saying it was a simple mineral disease-merely an instance of too much lead in certain portions of the anatomy.

Commenting again on nerves, tension and the importance of relaxation, Driggs pointed out that Americans last year swallowed some three billion aspirins. And today, the aspirin companies, looking forward toward further increased sales, are reported as experimenting to see if they can mix chlorophyll with aspirin to take care of those "stinking" headaches.
The speaker was introduced by Fred Rosa, local Rotarian and agent for the insurance company of which Driggs is division manager.

September 6, 1957

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