CarolinJ
.Vnion
FARMER
Vol. VI.—No. 23.
RALEIGH, N. C., JUNE 13, 1912
One Dolleu: a Year.
Self-Pity
ELBERT HUBBARD in July Cosmopolitan.
ELF-PITY is the act of feeling sorry for yourself. You sit down and weep because
you are not appreciated, or loved, or worshiped as you feel you should be.
Not being appreciated, you cast about for reasons. It is only a step then to
find them. You are hated—folks are plotting against you.
When you pity yourself you begin to think of yourself as the center of
creation, a sort of central sun around which the stars revolve—or should.
You are out of focus.
Unconsciously, the self-pity habit brings indifference, then pity, then the contempt of
everybody with whom the individual associates.
We would better take the bumps that life sends and regard them as lessons. Life is a strug
gle against our own limitations. If we pity, anyone, let’s pity the folks who have to live with us.
It is a great privilege to live, to engage in the struggle of existence, to fight for that which
is right, and if needs be to suffer and die for it.
To have a pain is proof that you are alive. Dead ones have no pain. Those who are alive
are bound to suffer. This is a part of the great education of every individval who really lives
and achieves. And to live, in itself, is an achievement.
To go down and acknowledge you are down is the only defeat. When you indulge in self-
pity you are on the slide, reaching for the swab.
Man’s business is to surmount, to arise, and when he begins to help himself he grows
strong, and everybody will help him.
Self-pity is the first sympton of paranoia. And paranoia is a disease of the brain that comes
from continually thinking of one’s own self and dwelling on slights and fancied insults.
If we fail in an undertaking we blame others. If we succeed we take all the credit to our
selves It is very much easier to blame some one else than to face the issue; and so we hide
our blunders behind an excuse, evolve self-pity, explain the matter to any one who will listen,
to get them, if possible, to feel sorry for us. f f *
Self-pity evolves hypocrites who pretend that they feel sorry for us, when the fact is that
down deep in their hearts, they think less of us for every whine, every grouch, and every growl.
When we explain, when we accuse, when we denounce others, self-pity begins to consume
us, and power takes wing. uju-utv^ 4.u ^ a
Carry your chin in and the crown of your head high. Keep your mouth closed, your eyes
n nnH brpathe through your nostrils. Don’t bewail unkind fate. Don’t try to Jay the
open^ and breathe through your nostrils. Don't Dewail unkind rate. Don't try to Jay the
^^^"rime is th^great adjuster of all wrongs, and in the course of even a short lifetime we get
all the love that is due us. That is to say, we get aU that we give.
Is hate my portion just now? Bless me, when d.d I pass tha out?
Life is a shooting of the chutes. Take your humps, and don t whine. There are quiet and
safety and rest and silence, down at the bottom where we are headed for, and there will be
plenty of time to enjoy thfem, too. But just now there is work to do.
Let’s be grateful that we are alive. There are over ninety million folks m America who
never played you a single nasty trick. There’s work to do. Ring in and at it!
,1.