Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1920-09-28
DOROTHY DIX T A L K S
DON'T HOLD POST-MORTEMS
BY DOROTHY DIX
The Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer .
Copyright. 1920 by the Wheeler Syndicate. Inc.)

10 gu ever play cards with
people who hold post-mortems
over every hand as soon as
it is played? Who spread
out their cards on the table and bore
you to extinction while they explain
been if they had played this and
that way and the cards had run diff
fercntly?
A great many people play the
game of life that way. They spend
half of their time explaining that
cause luck was against them, or they
made this or that wrong decision,
or they failed to take advantage OF
some good opportunity, or something
that somebody else did hoodooed
them.
Everybody knows some shiftless,
lazy, no-account man, too trihing to
keep his little store clean and too
unenterprising to even notice the
kind of goods that other merchants
sell, who whines to you that the rea-
son that he is failure is because
he didn't study one of the profess
sions.
He puts in his time dreaming dope
dreams about what a brilliant law
yer he would have been, or what a
successful doctor, or what a spell
binder preacher, instead of getting
busy and making a success of his
own job.
And everybody knows the slattern-
ly. lackadaisical woman whose house
looks like a pig sty; and who poisons
her husband and children on bad
food and who poses as martyr he
cause she made the fatal mistake of
getting married instead of going On
the stage, or writing books. .
She says sadly that her husband
is Il good man, and he is very kind
to her, and of course she is fond
Of her children. but she made a
She has no taste for domcsticity and
she realizes that she is blighted
genius, and she is so busy listening
to the imaginary applause she would
have got when she brought down the
Metropolitan with her singing, that
she doesn't hear her baby bowling
with the collie, or perceive that in
stead of being a great literary sue
cess she's a dismal failure at COM
posing we'll balanced meal, and a
often, poor actor as a wife and
mother.
sit down supinely and let other peo-
pie support them while they waste
their time and energy recounting how
rich and great they used to be, and
how much style they lived in, in
stead of getting up and hustling, and
L
lost money.
And there are still other people
who spend their lives in the ghoul-
ish occupation of continually rob-
bling their own graves and snatch
ing their corpses out of them, and
tearing open the wounds in their
hearts every time they show a sign
of healing.
Now of all occupations in the
world, none is SO foolish and so
fruitless as holding post-mortem;
on the past. Yesterday is yester-
day, and no power on. earth can
bring it back. What has happened
has happened, and all the talk IN
the world won't change it. When
the cards are dealt, we've got ouI
hands, and if we've played them bad
ly and lost, it is waste of breath
to speculate about what the result
would have been if we had done
differently.
The only thing that we can ge:
out of the past is experience. II
we have the wit to profit by the
lessons we have been taught, we
can avoid repeating the mistakes we
have made. The battles he have
fought in the past, the struggles
| we have gone through, can strength
| en- our muscles for the warfare OF
| the future, but that is absolutely all
| that the past can do for us. The
rest belongs to tomorrow and is on
| the knees of the gods.
| But if we dwell on the past 1t can
| weaken US, it can rob us of all mi
| tiative. 1t can sap our courage and