Omaha daily bee., 1916-10-31
Finding Ont
For Yourselves
, BY BEATRICE FAIRFAX. .

~ DA1AA = ANA III AA@ss
Experience is costly, as all of us
can tell;
We purchase it at retail-and then at
wholesale SELL"
The tragedy of youth is that it
never profits by any experience save
its own!
The older generation tells Youth
how its fingers were burned when it
tried to pull chestnuts from the fire
or how near it came to drowning
when it skated on the thin ice-and
Youth smiles intolerantly-and says:
"Oh, yes, of course you had difficult
ty, but | should have managed bet
ter in the same circumstances
Each of us has, as the Scotch say,
to dress his ain weird" This means,
as we all know, that everybody has to
go through with his own experiences.
A devoted mother says to her sick
child, 81 wish ! could take the pain
for YOU" But she can't--life does not
permit that. And the greater trag
edy is that, when sorrow and bereave-
ment and trial and temptation come
to that child grown up, the mother
can neither bear the pain for it nor
even assure the child out of her own
experience how best to meet the sit
uation
We have all to find out for our
selves. That is life. Those of us
who are particularly clever can draw
parallels from the experiences of 9th
ers. Those of use who are wise and
sane try to profit by experience.
But most of us buy our own ex-
perienee in the school of life--and
learn too slowly even from this ex-
pensive shopping!
| once knew girl who was wooed
and won by a plan who fell in love
with her at first sight and Tilted the
girl to whom he was engaged in or
der to become engaged to her. A fine
soul might have considered the other
girls pain. A sane soul would surely
have profited by the other girls expe-
rience! The man who was false to
one love when new fancy attracted
him was equally false to the second
love when again his Grant fancy
roamed.
That experience was a dear one.
The girl who had stolen another girls
lover suffered terribly when it came
her turn to lose. But did she profit
by that experience bought at high
price? Not at all. She went through
precisely similar experiences twice
more in her life-an actual wholesale
of the expensive knowledge she
should have gained once and for all
in the first place.
The sum total of human expert
ence teaches US that an hsbitual liaf
will lie whenever he feels the slight
est need or excuse fot it.
Constant repetition Of the same cir
cumstance shows that a wantonly
selfish person is bound to consider
himself first under almost any con-
ditions. The coward generally acts
like the craven he is. The extrava-
giant wastrel seldom saves. The brute
is almost invariably cruel
In the weakling there may be a
flare of good. Your coward may, in
a magnificent moment, sacrifice him
self bravely, and the most selfish in
divdual may be kind to some one.
But in dealing with people it isn't
safe to work on a basis OF comfort
liable exceptions. To expect things
from the world is to lay up tragic
disappointments for yourself.
Idealizing people and situations
against precedent and constant habit
is going to lead to disappointment in
ninety-nine cases out of any given
100.
And that is what costly experience
ought to teach US before we permit
ourselves to suffer over and over
again tragedies which are similar or
parallel, and which we ought to have
been able to forecast from expert
ences i'll the past.
If you won't learn by experience,
don't whine and whimper and rail at
cruel fate Instead, proceed to amend
your stupidity and make an honest
effort to sell your experience as dear
as you purchase it.