Was It Worth While?

Lake County Mail, Issue 24, 5 November 1947, Page 9

Was It Worth While?

It is impossible to have a quarrel all by yourself. So one bus to realise that in all the little upsets, which we do not like to remember,- we ourselves bad a fifty-fifty share Some day, when you have an idle hour on your hands, sit down and look back on your life and see how many of your unhappy moments have been caused by your own folly. It will amaze you! The day, for instance, when you ceased to be friends with someone who had meant a great deal in your life! Was that your fault? The day when you made someone cry because you considered you were justified in telling her “the brutal truth.” Was that quite necessary! GIVE WAY If you look hack, quietly and dispassionately, at the things which have gone wrong in your life, you will see how easily they might have gone right instead! Think for instance, when that little argument started at the breakfast table the other day—instead of allowing your voice to get louder and louder, would it not have been simple to have given way and to have agreed? Oh yes. you were in the right; but wouldn’t it have been just as.easy to give in with a good grace when you saw that “ someone ” was on edge. Is it ever worth while to answer back? Is’nt it much more worth while to sink one’s pride and wishes, and to bite one’s tongue if necessary to stop the spoken word which may lead to others that can never be recalled? THE DOOR BETWEEN I know a woman who having quarrelled badly over nothing with the man she loved, followed him to the door. With her hand on the latch, she hesitated, battling with her pride — longing to run after him and to say she was sorry, and yet with that Why should I?” feeling still paramount in her mind. For some seconds she stood there, until, at last, her better nature conquered, telling her that even if he should triumph a little because she was the first to apologise, it did not really matter. And then, having pulled the door wide, she found her husband standing outside, his mind torn with indecision just as her own had been! Clfe is often like that. If one is brave enough to climb down; it meets us halfway and so repays the sacrifice. If in the dark you trip over a hidden step, the next time you go that way you tread carefully so as not to repeat the mistake. It should be so in life. Let the mistakes of the past be a warning for the future, so that if things go wrong you can honestly say it was not your fault, because you did everything in your power to avoid trouble.