The beginning of a new Chapter year is a good time to walk away from ourselves and take a good, unbiased look. It is surprising sometimes the things we see when we obtain a new perspective. Let's try it. A Beta Sigma Phi of seventeen years membership once told us: "As Beta Sigma Phi's let's see how well equipped we are to meet the challenge of our membership in the year to come."

We may hold or hoard the beauty and release the fault of our successes and failures. We may decide in our own minds what it is we most desire, setting ourselves right to accomplish our purposes, resolving to let nothing hinder our own progress--either our own mental attitude or the cross current created by the attitude of others."

Shall we take an inventory of our own personal stock? Do we possess the necessary qualities of kindness, tolerance, faith and love? Will our supply suffice for the demands that will be made of us as members of our particular chapter group? Will it suffice for us as a member of International Organization of 200,000 plus women?

Emerson wrote that we have a great deal more kindness than is ever spoken. What good is the stock we own if we never use it?

Do we have "more tolerance for our fellow-beings through a better understanding of them? Or is our understanding blocked by personal prejudices and lack of interest in any problems other than our own? "Faith makes the discords of the present the harmonies of the future." "Faith marches at the head of the army of progress." Have we faith in ourselves? Have we faith in our Beta Sigma Phi sisters? Have we faith in the leaders of our chapters? Have we faith in the ideal of Beta Sigma Phi? Is that faith strong enough to sustain us even when the intellect falters?

Are we possessors of an unlimited store of love, without which every particle of kindness, tolerance and faith would be as nothing? Can we feel as did Edwin Markham when he wrote:
"He drew a circle that shut me out.
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win.
We drew a circle that took him in."

Is the quantity and quality of our love, sufficient to enfold every experience that may come to any one of us? For it is only through love that we may attain the skill and the grace to guide us through each experience.

If our inventory shows these qualities in their proper proportion, we will meet the demands of every day of the new year."