“NEVER COMPLAIN”

Evening Star, Issue 20984, 24 December 1931, Page 1

“NEVER COMPLAIN”

SELF-PITY FOOLISH “ Never complain. Lot that ho your leading principle. “ Self-pity is one of the worst habits anyone can have. Unfortunately innumerable persons have this evil habit, to their and to others’ misfortune. By pitying themselves, by pondering on their troubles and making a display of these in order to arouse pity in others, they increase their own sufferings without doing themselves any good whatever. Self-pity is sentimentalism of the most foolish kind, and is characteristic of the weakling.

“ Just as dirt is matter in the wrong place, so is sentimentalism a feeling in the wrong place! “ Wo are.equipped with feelings that we may bo activated by them to leave undone that which may be noxious, and to seek out that which will be advantageous. When we suffer pain wo should turn it to account by noting that something is going on which must be altered, and by setting to work on the instant to make the necessary change. “ If, instead of doing this, wo surrender to the p .in, wo are not persons of true feeling, but sentimentalists. There arc unfortunately more sentimentalists than persons of true feeling, and in every one of us there is a considerabb infusion of sentimentalism. Almost all of us like being commiserated, are fond of indulging in self-pity, thereby doing ourselves more harm than wo imagine. “ ft is really' a. most foolish form of self-indulgence. The reason why we are so apt to delight in being pitied is that it gives uS a chance of ascertaining whether and lupv much we are loved. That is why wo are always hard hit when, where wo expected much sympathy, we get little or none at all. When this happens it seems to us that wo are poverty-stricken and forsaken.

“ But instead of troubling ourselves and others with the contemplation of our sufferings, we should try to make an end of them. Suppose that suffering comes to anyone, let him ask himself two questions: Why did this happen P How can I change it ? The answer to the former question will guide us as to the avoidance of a recurrence of the trouble in the future, will teach us whether it may not have been an erroneous idea or a parassociation which has led to the suffering. If that proves to be the case, it gives ns an excellent reason for freeing ourselves from the erroneous idea or disrupting the paras,sociation. “ Above all, wo should concentrate forthwith on the problem: ‘ How can 1 alter it?’ fpstead of _ complaining, instead of indulging in self-fhty, wo should set our mind seriously to work, form a plan,'and act on it promptly. If immediate action to promote a change be impossible, do not waste time upon the unalterable, but content yourself with learning from _ the present trouble bow.to avoid it in future.” — from ‘ Desuggestions (Tietjeus).