Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1920-03-27
a RE you a wet blanket?

~ Are you one of those who
- L. feel it to be your sacred duty
to chill hope. and take the pep out
of enthusiasm?
When anyone breaches a plan to
yoI do you pick it to pieces, and
knock it down, and trample on it
until it lies a little pile of broken
| rubbish at your feet?
If anyone suggests going anywhere
to you, do you raise so many ohjec-
| lions that you take all the pleasure
out of it before you even start?
f you are discourager, stop be-
ing one. You are killing the joy
of life for those about you. Yo1
are Staying the divine THU in them
| that makes them able to achieve,
and you are worse than the murderer
who merely takes a mans life.
The measure of what we can do
is Just what we think we can do.
Our faith in ourselves sets our
limit. We cannot go one inch be-
yond that, and so when you destroy
our self-confidence, and make us dis
trustful of our ability, you wish fail
ure upon us.
We must SOW in hope, if we reap
success. 1t is only by keeping the
goal constantly before our eyes, and
believing with all our hearts that we
have the strength to reach it, that
gives us the courage to Struggle and
fight on Dim that hope, weaken
that faith and we give up, and sit
down, and fold our hands, and say,
what's the use.
The world is full Of failures who
would have been successes if they
had not had the misfortune of hav-
ing a discourager in the family.
Sometimes the wet blanket is a wife
who drihr1os ice water down her hus-
bands back until he gets such cold
feet he is afraid to move an inch
out of the rut into which he has
gotten, no matter how clearly he
sees fortune reckoning him down
new road.
The man has abfhty. He has vi
sion. He is optimistic. and wants to
build for the future. He comes HON
full of some plan for charging his
business, or striking out in a new
direction, or keen to take some offer
he has had to go to another country
or city. He knows he can succeed
because he feels within himself the
power to do tre thing he is planning
to do.
But wife fishes out the cold douche,
and applies it so effectually that she
brings his temperature down from
fever heat to- sub-normal before he
is half through explaining his plan.
She warns him against taking risks,
an to let we'll enough alone. She
| cites all the cases she has ever known
of people who lost their all through
some new venture. She prophesies
every form of dark disaster, and
| w. rms him that he is not so young
as he used to be, and that his health
| might fail, and that they might come
| TO want in their old age and so dis
| NAL and disheartening is the vision
| that she paints that the man finds
his own enthusiasm petering out, and
! his belief in himself dying, and he
gives the project up.
| A great many wives take credit to
| themselves for being brakes upon
their husbands enthusiasms, and say
| that they are always holding John
| or Henry back from going into some
new thing. Little do they know how
often they keep their husbands from
great achievements, and cut them
selves out of the fortune and the
fame they might have had.
1T used to tell my wife all of my
plans and talk over things with her
until I found out that she wet
blanketed every scheme l. presented
to her." said successful man. Nov
| never tell her anything about what
I'm going to do until after the thing
is accomplished, because I haven't
got the time, or strength, to flgh1
her objections. Nor can I afford tt
have the fine flower Of my belief II