Rensselaer Democrat, Volume 1, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 May 1898 — ME TOO! [ARTICLE]

ME TOO!

Self-Pity Too Often Means Lom of V Moral Force* We all lovr sympathy. Perhaps that accounts for the fact shat few of us will listen to another’s tale of woe without chiming hpwitp an account of our own grievances. ; A small girl who has a baby brother.always seems to envy him the sympathy showered upon him when he has : the-colic. As soon as the mother tries to soothe the fretful baby and speaks pityingly to him, a small hand pulls bes arm, and a plaintive little voice sug'g?s\;s, “Me, too, mamma!” * 0b not in any' of Us go through the yvpfld\with a pitiful “Me, too”’ constantly on our lips? The heart"knoweth rH*{awn bitterness and the soul Its own .trjabh and It Is hard to cry out “Me, too!” when we see lavished upon others the’sympathy for wjileh we long and iwfiyvhieh we feel we •stand ip need. 1

*. yet how much braver it Is to keep silence! Every time we exercise the habit of self-cbntrol we jftln fresh Strength with Which to control ourselves. Last week I heard two women talking. Perhaps It wwuld be nearer/ m truth to say that one was talking, the other listening. The listener had recently been told by a specialist that a course of long and severe surgical treatment would be necessary to relieve RkJbAf a painful malady that had taken from her step and the roundsness from her figure. The talker her.self'had not been very well, and exphtterl upon her uncomfortable feelings ansshe many disagreeable things, such and regular exercise, her physician had prescribed for her case. ''You don’t know bow hard It is to have to suffer* so much"’ she complained., “You have lost flesh, but you are well, aren’t you? You never complain.” “I seldom have cause for complaint,” Wasthe cheerful reply. “I am Indeed you are so far from well.” Later I took my friend to task for 'her reticence on the subject of her health. “Why did you not tell her,” queried I, “.that her suffering is as nothing, to sours ?”

“Because,” she answered, “I will not allow myself to grtunble. It becomes a habit which annoys others and harms yourself. I simply dare not do it. I will not evep pity myself. If I did, I should l>e gone.' Self-pity means loss of moral force.” She had struck the right note. While we hold our ailments, physical <or mental or spiritual ,at arm’s length and fight them we keep brave, When we sink down and look at them in ali their hideousness, and wall, “Woe is me!” we lose the last atom of courage, and become weak and cowardly, mental or spiritualist and but as we value our moral strength of character and force of will; lot us refuse to utter the whining “Me, too!” — Harper’s Bazaar.