Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1928-08-08
losing Things.

There's a good chance tor a pSy-
cholegist In the "lost and found" de-
partment of large department store
or railway station or the column bear
ing that head in a city paper. 1t would
be interesting to know what people
mostly lose and where and when; /
am mainly interested in the why.
For every article really lost there are
a dozen or score that seem to be lost.
The loser becomes the finder. How
much time do you lose in looking for
things? The grand total would be
astounding. / employed a carpenter
who literally spent more time looking
for lost tools and things than he did in
actual work. If he set lock. he was
sure to lose the screws or the knob
or the spindle And as for blotters and
calendars and stamps and pens and
the endless whatnots of desk. they
disappear more easily than conjuror's
cards.
The major clue to all this losing of
things is distraction. You can't keep
your eye Tor your mind) on the major
part of job without losing track of
the details. In sense, you have more
on your hands than YOU can manage.
A surgeon couldn't afford to perform an
operation on that plan. He has
stan OF assistants to hand him every
thing he needs and to follow up his
incisions He must concentrate, and
it's because l concentrate at my desk
or the carpenter at his job that the
many details slip out of the field of
attention and get lost.
When you get chance to trace the
lost article that later you found, YOU
frequently find that it was put away
just as somebody spoke to you, or the
telephone rang; so the act of putting 1t
away failed to register properly. One
thing drives another out of the mind.
One Of the most constant ways of los1
ing things is in laying them down on
the counter when you are shopping and
falling to pick them up because you
! get absorbed in your new purchases.
Remember your parcels" Is the cry
Of the porter as the passengers leave
the train.
The next point in the psychology of
losing things is the element of fear of
loss, especially when the object is of
some value. You look, with a little
sense Of fear that it may be lost, for
letter or piece of jewelry or bill
and in your excitement you fail to find
1T and hold 1t to be lost. Then you
look here. there and elsewhere, the fear
increasing with each failure. The prop
err rule is to look again and again, but
more calmly and more carefully in the
first place that you sought it. It's re-
markable how often 1t is found Just
where you first looked for it. The fear
OF loss made you blind.
Now the Freudians have quite another
theory Of lost articles, for they think
there Is small bit of purpose in it,:
that We lose many things that we want
to lose because their associations are
unpleasant. They tell of a case in
which husband lost an important
paper given to him by his wife with
whom he was not on good terms, but
found 1t at once when they we're recon-
ciled: he then really wanted to find it..
They hold the same true of dreams and
tell OF girl. no longer so young but
not yet married, who dreamed of losing
her graduation ring. They interpr%
this to mean that she would like to
lose 1t as 1t reveals her age: she wants
70 pose as younger. as youth Is rated
highly in the marriage market.
But a glance at the Lost and Found
column shows how rarely this expIa-
nation holds. People don't lose things
and offer rewards for their recovery n
they want to lose them. And the rea-
son why valuable articles are so often
lost Is that We get nervous about their
care. The bad penny always turns
up, you can't lose 1t.
Losing things is part Of a mental
habit; It's hard and slow lesson to
learn enough system to prevent loss.
From nursery to the living room and all
over the house resounds the familiar
cry: Il can't find my booksl" HAS
ANYBODY seen my purse?" Where is
the key to the auto?" Who took my
umbrella" II wonder where put
that parcel!" and then scramble and
| a wild hunt for the lost articles. Just
an ordinary family scene.
Order Is heavens first law" and it
seems to be mans last: with everything
| In disorder loss Is inevitable. You can