Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1924-05-06
COOL DOWN FIRST
BY IT. ADDINGTON- BRUCE

p TOT long ago the senior class Of the Mas
N sachusetts Institute of Technology lis
X tened to an unusual lecture by a vet
eran inventor. 1t was not the professional
lecture the students had doubtless expected
to hear. Mechanical principles and processes
had no place in it. Instead the speaker SIM
ply drew on the experiences of long career
to give the young men before him some help
full hints regarding things to be avoided II
they would manage their lives successfully.
And in especial he warned them never to
make an important decision while angry or
while chatting under a sense of injustice.
Failure to heed this warning himself, he
frankly admitted, had cost him fortune.
Here, in part, is his story, as he told it to the
Technology students:
'In 1905, when the company with which
was associated had gotten under way, l
was in possession of a large number of shares
Of the stock, Part of this had come to me as
reward for my work, and part I had bought
with money borrowed from bank.
CAS- often happens in budding enterprises,
there arose clash of ambitions and inter
ests. The events that took place caused me
to feel that | was not being used just right,
and that my interests were in danger In a
moment Of chagrin and despair, OF anger and
wounded feelings l sold my stock for song
to one who was very glad to buy it.
81 was fiftytwO years old, and ought to
cool and used a fair amount of good, hard
sense, [ would have saved myself many re
grets and humiliations. SO after thirty years
of struggle, and at the very threshold Of a
success beyond any reasonable expectation, |
threw away my hard-earned reward. Within
five years the stock that l had sold for al
most nothing would have made me, had l
kept it, mult-miIliOnaire."
An experience such as this could not fail
to impress profoundly the eager, ambitious
audience to whom it was told. And indeed,
this inventors experience might be dupliCat-
ed from the life story of many another man,
Who falling to cool down before acting, has
in a piQue tossed away his future prospects
of material success.
Still worse, to act under the impulse OF
anger or injured self-esteem may mean a
lifetime of bitter regrets because of the harm
done to others as we'll as to oneself Some
times it is a question Of bodily harm, more
often Of harm in the devastation Of happiness
and peace Of mind.
Friendships have been needlessIy sundered,
quarrels needlessly provoked, family ties
shattered. Our divorce courts and our Grim
inal courts alike would have infinitely less to
do if the MAXIM Cool down first" were
more generally kept in mind. Innumerable
are those who too late remember, with Will
Cartoons remorseful settler:
Boys flying kites haul in their white
winged birds;
You can't do that way when you're flying
words.
Careful with fire is good advice we know,
Careful with words is ten times doubly so.
Thoughts uneXpressed may sometimes fall
back dead
But God Himself can't kill them when they're
said"
Not one good reason is there for speaking
deciding, doing in the heat Of anger, There
are a hundred reasons for waiting until the
anger abates.
IC0Dy-rioIt 1o01N