Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1922-01-21
BROODING OVER WRONGS
By H. Addington Bruce
the newspapers report
trapic hanneninps c0ncrafalY emnha-

CONTINUALLY the newspapers report
tragic happenings concretely empha-
~ sizing the folly of brooding over real
or fancied wrongs. Murder, suicide, insanity
all these are possible and frequently &C.
curing .outcomes Of such brooding.
And as its least catastrophe consequence
to brood over wrongs means inevitably to
impair ones health, to lessen ones ability
to do good work, to establish sentiments put
ting one SO completely out of touch with
ones fellows as to compel a miserable lone
Illness.
Nor Is it true to say-as many brooders
ar inclined to say in self-defense-that the
brooding tendency is one quite beyond per-
sonal control, being chiefly matter of tenn
permanent.
Temperament itself is more often an &C
CURED product than is commonly supposed.
That Is to say, what passes under the name
Of temperament is often nothing but the Gu
mulatfve effect of habits of long standing.
There may be-there doubtless are-some
truly temperamental brooders But the great
majority brood simply because, in early life,
they were permitted by their parents to be-
ONE morbidly egotistic, morbidly sensitive,
.orbdiy prone to grieve and sulk if things
did not go to their liking
Habits tend to be formed early and to
0w apace The habit of brooding. left IN
checked in its incipiency, differs not whit
from any other habit in this respect. So that
it may eventually develop into such a con-
slant mode of behavior as to be mistaken for
an Unborn and incurable defect
In reality it Is not incurable unless it has
progressed to a point where it has caused
a. other bad mental habits may cause-out-
right mental disease. Up to that point it
An be cured by training (including self
raining) designed to substitute a better
ahitual response to sights, grievances, in
juries, etc.
Now, If you who read these lines happen
yourself to be addicted to the deplorable
habit of brooding, note carefully what fol-
The essential shortening Of all breeders
is that they think too much of SELF They
are so to speak, painfully wrapped up in
themselves. Their great need consequently
is self-forgetfulness, and this need they can
meet in various ways.
They can meet it, for one way, by cultivat-
ing greater enthusiasm for their work. If
they are SO circumstance that they do not
have to work. they can still help themselves
gain self-forg etfulness by busying themselves
with socially useful activities of some sort.
The socially useful derive too much salts
faction from the knowledge of their useful
ness to have any inclination for the self
plying which is the bane of breeders. Also
they are saved from this by their dominant
desire to be as helpful to others as they pos
sibly can be.
Breeders will find this desire becoming
dominantly theirs also, in proportion as they
give themselves to socially valuable work.
And as it becomes theirs they will acquire
more and more the benign habit of meeting
the unpleasant serenely-that habit which
is the very opposite Of the brooding habit
by which they now are enslaved
copyright, 1922, by The Associated
Newspapers)