Omaha daily bee., 1915-04-22
Quick Thinking
as an Asset
BY BEATRICE FAIRFAX.

All minds ought to be trained to act
quickly. No matter how great your
power OF logically reasoning out big
problems, no matter how capable you are
Of slow constructive thinking, your mind
is thoroughly useless to you unless it
can grapple quickly with the sudden
problems placed before It in everything
living.
All through life emergencies arise. They
demand almost instantaneous action.
They have to be met and faced on the
second. And the mind that cannot adjust
itself to a new set of circumstances and
react on them promptly is rather useless
20 its owner
One of the stories that delighted my
youth was the tale OF little Dutch boy
who was walking along the bikes of
Holland and beheld a tiny hole through
which the water was trickling While he
sszed the trickle became a stream. He
realized at once that before he could get
help the stream must become torrent.
SO promptly the little Dutchman put his
fist into the hole and stopped IT, or
course he saved the country, for though
IL was hours before any one came along
the lonely road. and though his arm was
numb from the cold water, the living
plug had stopped the hole and the coun-
try was not flooded.
All life is full OF accidents that need
never have happened If the first person
to become aware of their danger had
acted promptly
The tendency in case OF sudden emer-
gency is TO rush about msdly screaming
and lamenting and Seeking some blind
~
is wasted. " there Is a minute or two
to spare in emergency, wise way IT
meeting it is to sit down very quietly
and think over possibilities for action
But If there are only twenty seconds
and those twenty are spent in quick
thought and not in blind manifestations
Of fear or excitement, the emergency will
be better met.
All sorts of decisions are put up to
one and immediate answer becomes
necessary. II you are incapable OF
quick thinking-or rather too lazy to
exert yourself to hard. careful thought
you will follow the idle line of desire
or impulse and lead your whole future
astray
"Oh. yes, that's all very we'll but I'm
naturally slow and none too clever" says
James. Well, James. when you took to
lasting in the shoe shop what was your
daily capacity? Your output is about
twenty time what 1t was then, isn't It?
And that is because YOU found IL i'm
portant to speed up IL you wanted to
make a decent living.
DO you know of any reason why you
can't speed up your thoughts? The
reason you can't think quickly IL prob
ably because you aren't in the habit OF
thinking at all. You look at things DULY
and with no more observation than the
beasts of the field bring to life. You
look and do not take the trouble to
study out what things are about You
look or listen to what is presented to |
look. Do you ever try to reason about III
Get i'm the habit Of observing carefully !
everything that is put before you. sup !
pose you were riding down in the sub
way and across from you sits man
reading a Greek newspaper. Don't grin |
10 Yourself derisively because he 10 |
little different from you. But stop TO |
notice how he is different. Observe the
of the Greek paper Get the |
feeling OF patriotism as deep as your
own. Wonder about him. Try to i'm
q CINE how our cold northland must I'M
press him and what he thinks of the
differences between our progressive ma
chiue-made country and his own land OF
romance.
observe everybody about you. Think
about people and things. Imagine their
ives and their actions. Wonder about
yourself. too. Form and dismiss all sorts
# ."snap judgments" about things until
YOU have worked out one that is worth /
keeping to.
The habit Of thinking and wondering
about things and reacting to them' the |
tendency to cultivate your imagination
viii serve you we'll all through life. for |
once you have forced yourself into the |
habit of thinking you will be able TO
think more and more quickly AND so
you will be armed against emergency
ana able to act wisely and we'll on short |
notice..