Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1918-02-02
LIFE'S PROBLEMS
ARE DISCUSSED
By MRS. WILSON WOODROW

There seems to be an odd rota-
ton of mental states. Perhaps some
learned psychologist may be able to
explain 1t; but not being a learned
psychologist, | confess my inability
to do so. One week tho majority of
my correspondents utterly unknown
to each other will write me about
their domestic perpleXities; the next
week about their financial difficult
ties; the next about their sentiment
al mbarrassments; the next about
their moral or mental problems.
And it isn't local thought-wave by
any means. 1t extends from coast
to coast. The postmarIs on the let
ters vary from Maine to California.
This week the greatest number of
! letters have treated of disappoint-
ment and disillusion in all the af-
fairs of life, and most of them have
been written by young men and
girls from eighteen to twenty-five or
tWenty-three years of age.
l read their letters over again be-
fore beginning this article, Just to
get impressions that would help me
in answering them; and it seemed
for n moment as if clouds were all
about me, black clouds. For the
tragedies of youth. viewed so lightly
| by most people who have left their
| twenties behind them, are very real
and very poignant. And extreme
youth, having no experience to go on,
exaggerates its sorrows and minim-
ICES its joys.
But there is a good old adage
| which you all know, Every cloud
has a silver lining" Only the
bother of it is that we are usually
too much engrossed with the cloud
, to pause and admire it's lining. We
all know just what the cloud of
ment looks like-a black, ugly.
murky thing-yet the lining is much
more worth considering. 1t is a
radiant shimmering mist with a
rainbow iridescence, the silver over
laying wonderful tones of blue and
rose and emerald. And the stimu-
| lating and delightful part of it is
that even the blacklist clouds are
! never without this lining of light.
FORTY-FOUR
A boy has written me that he
failed to take prize to the win
ming of which he had bent all his
| energies for three or four years,
and he finds it impossible to recover
from the disappointment. He cam
| not get over it or take a proper in
terest in anything, and he is puzzled
and disgusted at his state of mind
and wants to know how to overcome
! it.
This may seem a very trivial
youthful woe to most people, but
it is very real to him because it has
brought with it n sense of humilia-
ton and has impaired his belief in
| himself. He does not realize yet that
both the sense of humiliation and
the loss of self-contidence are un-
necessary.
All of us overshoot the mark now
and then. We can't always hit the
| bullseye, so we might as well be
philosophical about it, laugh, shrug
our shoulders and have another try.
| What this lad needs to understand
! is that his weakness is also his
strength. The same quality in his
nature that caused him to suffer so
acutely over his failure is also the
quality that will insure him success
and TIA. is his power of concentra-
ton.
The only difficulty is that he does
not know how TO use this power yet.
He threw every force of his nature
into the winning of this prize, and
when, for some reason which he
does not give. it slipped through his
fingers he could not adjust himself
to the fact.
He had set his mind on that one
thing, had fixed his attention so COM
pletely upon it that it was difficult
to let go. He feels that having
missed the one thing on which he
had fastened his hopes, there is
nothing for him to live for. This
condition of mind is purely tempor-
ary, although he does not know that
yet; but that very faculty he pos
sesses of complete absorption in an
idea is guarantee of his ultimate
success. No human being with that
gift for concentration is destined for
permanent failure-not by any
means.
But he has to learn to harness and
drive it, not to let it drive him.
You are a thousand times more like
ly to win a thing if you don't care
particularly whether you win or lose,
whether you hold it or let it go.
That, l admit, seems very puzzllng.
1t is certainly paradoxical to say In
one breath. "Set out to. win with all
the determination there is in you and
YOU can't lose" and in the next
breath remark, "If you don't care a
straw whether you win or lose you
stand twice the chance of winning"
FIFTY-FIVE
Yet the two statements can be
reconciled. Take a trapeze perform
er for instance. We will suppose
him to be intensely ambitious to sue
ceed in some difficult and dangerous
feet. While he is practicing for it
he concentrates his attention upon
1t, he works patiently, methodically,
with the end he aspires to always in
view. But no matter how anxious
he is to do his stunt he is very care
full not to strain his muscles or to
overtrain. His body is the vehicle
that he uses to gain the results he