A Phrase That Adler Spoke Frequently but Rarely Wrote

Adler borrowed a term from a line from a poem by Goethe: “Ich hab’ mein Sach auf Nichts gestellt.” Goethe’s message had surely been expressed by others in German and in their own languages hundreds and even thousands of years previously. The words are roughly interpreted to mean “I’ve placed my mental well-being upon nothing that I attempt to accomplish.” Thus, my feeling of being at home in this world will not change by my success or failure in that which I have attempted to do for the benefit of others. Even those who have been very successful, to people who have read their writings or seen their presentations, can be more useful when they realize that they are the messenger and not the message, relinquishing their concern for their own ascendency. Only then can they be even more useful.