Speaker 1: Don't reteal your woes. A miserable habit, it grows as
it is fed, a nuisance to friends and neighbors, it
brings to you more of the same kind. You will
get what you look for. Looking for trouble brings it.
Don't imagine that you are being put upon. Don't reteal
your woes. Don't reteal your woes. Do you think that
it does you any good to go around with a
long face, telling your tale of woe to everyone whom
you can induce to listen to you? Do you think
that it does you any good? Do you think it
helps you to overcome your troubles or makes your burden
any lighter? No, I don't believe that you think any
such things. All your experience teaches you that people don't
like to listen to long drawn out tails of your troubles.
They have enough of their own. Even those who are
always ready to lend a helping hand and to give
what aid they can to one who needs it. Resent
being made targets for a continuous fusillade of troubles, woes, griefs,
et cetera. And you know very well that a constant
repetition of your own woes will only make them seem
greater and more real to you. And then the chronic
retailer of woe grows to be like the journalist, develops
a keen scent for matter to be dished out to others.
She needs it in her business. When one gets into
this habit of caring about tales to her friends, she
runs out of ready material and eagerly looks round for
more with which to supply the demand. She becomes quite
an adapt at discovering insults, sneers, double meaning remarks, et
cetera on the part of her friends and relatives, where
nothing of the kind was intended, And she rules these
things over and over in her mind like sweet morsels,
before she serves them up with appropriate trimmings to her listeners.
You will notice that I say her in speaking of
the victim of dis demoralizing habit, and some of my
readers of that sex will undoubtedly take me to task
for blaming it on the woman in instead of the men. Well,
you all know my ideas about the equality of the sexes,
about their being different, but one being as good as
the other, with the odds a little in favor of
the woman. But I feel justified in saying that this
habit is one that seems to have a special liking
for women, and it generally picks out a woman for
its victim in preference to a man. When a man
acquires this habit, he becomes such a nuisance to his
friends and associates that sooner or later he will notice
that they avoid him, and the chances are that some
blunt fellow will tell him that he has no time
for listening to tales of this kind, and that if he,
the complainer, would display the same energy in attending to
his business that he does to peddling around tales about
how badly he has been used, he would not need
any sympathy. But woman, God bless her, does not like
to hurt the feelings of others in this way. She
suffers the infliction in silence, and then tells her friends
how she has been bored. She will listen to her
whoe retaling friend and seem to sympathize with her and say, oh,
isn't it dreadful?
Speaker 2: How could she speak so harshly of you, you poor dear,
How you must have suffered? How could he have treated
you so unjustly?
Speaker 1: And other things of that kind. But when the visitor goes,
she yawns and says, dear me, if missus Groan would
only try to say something more cheerful. She gives me
the horrors with her tales about her husband, her relatives,
her friends, and everybody else. But missus Groan never seems
to see the point, and she adds to her list
of people who have put upon her as she goes along,
her tired out friends being added to the number as
their patience wears out. And then the effect upon the
woman herself. You know the effect of holding certain lines
of thoughts, of autosuggestion, of the attractive power of thought.
And you can readily see how this woman makes things
worse for herself all the time. She goes around with
her mind fixed upon the idea that everybody's hand is
against her, and she carries about with her an aura
that attracts to her all the unpleasant things in the neighborhood.
She goes around looking for trouble, and of course she
gets it. Did you ever notice a man or a
woman looking for trouble? And how soon they found it?
The man looking for a fight, it generally accommodated the
woman looking for slights always gets them, whether the giver
intends them or not. This sort of mental attitude fairly
draws out the worse in those with whom we come
in contact, and the predominant thought drows to itself all
the corresponding thought within its radius. One who dwells upon
the fancied fact that everybody is going around trying to
injure him, treat him unkindly, sneer at him, slight him,
and generally use him up is pretty sure to find
that he has attracted to him enough people who will
humor his fancy and give him what he expects in
thought force. You will remember, I tell the story of
the two dogs. The one dog, dignified and self respecting,
whom no boy ever thinks of bothering. The other dog,
who expects to be kicked by every passing boy, and
who draws himself up and places his tail between his
legs and actually suggests the cake to the passing boy.
Of course, he gets kicked. It's wrong for the boy
to do it, I know, But the dog's attitude is
too much for the nature of the average boy. And
grown ups are built upon the same plan. These people
who are going around in the mental attitude which invites
unkind treatment generally manage to find some one who will
have his natural meanness drawn out to such a convenient
lightning rod. And in fact such people often generate harsh
feelings in persons who scarcely ever manifest them. Like attracts
like in the world of thought, and one draws upon
him the things he fears in many cases. But one
of the most regrettable things about this woe retailing woman
is the effect the habit has upon her own mind
and character. When we understand how one is constantly building
up character, adding a little every day, and that our
thoughts of the day are the material which are going
into our character structure, it will be seen that it
is a matter of the greatest importance what kind of
thoughts we think. Thoughts are not wasted. They not only
go out in all directions, influencing others, attracting persons and
things to ourselves, but they have a creative effect upon
our own mind and character. Thought along a certain line
will develop certain brain cells to a great extent, and
the cells manifesting the contrary line of thought are allowed
to dwindle away and shrivel up. Now, when we have
our minds fixed upon the thought that we are long
suffering mortals, and that everyone else is trying to do
mean things to us, that we are not appreciated, and
that those who should care most for us are only
biding their time until they can hurt us. We are
building up our minds along that line, and we find
ourselves in the habit of looking for the worst in everybody,
and we often manage to bring it to the surface,
even if we have to dig hard for it. Some
of this class of people seem to take a particular
delight in bringing upon their head the harsh words and
slights of others. Now I really mean this. I have
seen people go around with that I'm a warm of
the dust, please tread on me air, and the same
expression as that in the eyes of the dog which
expected to be kicked. And when somebody would be nagged
into saying or doing something that they would not otherwise
have thought of, the wool seeker's eyes would assume an
expression of I told you so, and it's only poor me,
and it's all I can expect. Everybody wishes to crush me,
and a few other assorted thoughts of that kind. And
then she will go to her room and moan and
weep and dwell upon her miseries until they seem to
be as large as a mountain. And then the first
chance she gets, she'll run around the corner to a
friend and will reteal all the new stock of wooes
which she has accumulated with fancy trimmings. You may feel sure,
and the friend will try hard to avoid showing that
she's bored at the tale she has so often heard,
but will say nice little things until the mourner is
sure that the whole world sympathizes with her, and she
feels a glow of righteous indignation, self pity, and martyrdom.
Oh the pity of it all. These people go through
the world making things harder for themselves, their friends, their relatives,
and everyone else with whom they come in contact. They
are constantly seeking to keep their stock fresh and attractive,
and display more energy in their retailing than the average
man or woman does in business. This thing of looking
for trouble is a very unfortunate thing in families. As
a rule, I think that woman gets the worse of
it in family troubles. The economic position places her at
a disadvantage and she often suffers all sorts of horrible
things rather than have her troubles made public. But I
must say that some women bring upon themselves all that
they get. I have known them to get in a
frame of mind in which they could see nothing but unkindness,
where the utmost kindness was meant. Man is not an angel,
far from it. But the attitude of some women is
enough to bring out all the qualities other than angelic.
They assume that they are put upon and live up
to that idea. Every word that the man says is
twisted and disorted into something entirely different from what he intended.
The mental attitude produces moral astigmatism, and things are seen
at the wrong angle. All the little things that happened
are promptly retailed to some mischief making neighbor, who is
in the game for the excitement it affords her, and
who laughs at the wife behind her back and talks
about her in turn to some third person. And the
wife fairly draws upon herself all sorts of things that
never would have happened otherwise. She knows that her neighbor
is waiting for today's budget of news, and she almost
unconsciously shapes things so that the facts justifying the news
are forthcoming. Did you ever notice that woman who keeps
her troubles to herself does not have nearly as much
pickering and strife in her household as the one who
has acquired the retailing habit. Don't retail your woes. Keep
them to yourself and they will die. But spread them
and they will grow like weeds. You are making things
worse for yourself, are drawing things to you, and are
spoiling your mind, disposition, and care character by this miserable
business of retelling woes