The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-06-16
Dorothy Dix Talks
We Only Reap What We Sow.
by DOROTHY DIX
worlds Highest Paid Woman wrivsg.

The reason that many people are so
disgruntled with life is because they
expect to reap where they have not
sown.
These same individuals would send
in a hurry call for an alienist if they
saw farmer preparing to gather in
rich harvest from "a field that he had
neither titled nor sown. They see
nothing reasonable, however, in de-
handing that they. themselves. should
enjoy all of the good things of life
without their having done anything to
earn them.
We have a common example of this
in the men and women all about US
who are failures. They rail at fate,
and curse their luck. and talk about
pull. and faVoritism, when the plain
truth is that they are cheaters who
are trying to reap where they have not
sown.
They have never planted the seeds
that eventually flower into achieve
ment. They have not honestly striven.
They loafed, and idled, and turned
gutter when the long hard pull came
that requires putting your back, and
your mind, and your soul into your
Job.
There is no use in-telling these peo-
pie that every successful man and ev-
cry successful woman is merely reap
ing what they have sown in hard
work, in long. hours, in faithful per-
Torrance of duty in the face of diff
culties.
They do not want to win success
that way. They want some miracle
to happen so that they may enjoy the
fruits Of labor without having to Ia
Dor. And the miracle never comes
off.
other people want to gain in the
harvest of love without having earned
love. They want to be loved without
ever doing anything to earn love-
Not long ago a man complained
bitterly to me that his wife and chill
dren never showed him any affection,
and that he felt an outsider in his
own home.
This man had been a hard and
tyrannical husband and father. Never,
after he married her, did he show his
wife any tenderness. He rarely spoke
to her except to find fault.
He was stern and cold to his chill
dren He never petted and caressed
them even when they were babies. He
never talked to them, or took them on
jaunts, or made any little treats for
them. He never showed them that he
had any love for them, and they grew
up in such deadly fear of him that
even when they were men and women
they were silent and constrained in his
presence.
Such a man has no right to expect
his family to love him. He had never
sown love and tenderness, and he
could no more reap a rich harvest of
affection than could the farmer gather
in the wheat from the field he had
permitted to grow up Inc thistles.
Very many people are like this man.
They do not realize that unless they
are lovable they cannot hope to be
loved. They go their selfish and self
feentered way thru life, trampling over
the rights of others; inconsiderate of
the feelings of others. ignoring the joys
and sorrows of others, and yet expect
to have affection showered upon them
in spite of their having done nothing
to merit it.
You often hear men and women, es-
pecially old men AMI women. bewail-
ing their lonelinessSand lack of friends.
Yet in all their long lives they have
done nothing to win friendship, or bind
another heart to theirs.
They never held out helping hand
to anyone in need. They never put
aside their own pleasure to weep with
those who mourned. or rejoice with
those who were glad, and so when the
time came when they hungered for
human companionship and affection,
| they ached for it in vain. They had
failed to sow the seeds of friendship
and so when they came to reap their
field 1t was barren.