_ CHAPTER ONE. THE COURAGE OF SELF-CONQUEST
IV. FORGETTING WRONGS
There are people whose minds are like a lumber-room, littered with all sorts of odds and ends. In such a room it is impossible to count on laying hands promptly on a desired article, and in such a mind confusion takes the place of order. The mind had better be empty. An empty mind presents a fine opening for the proper kind of filling, but a confused mind is hopeless. How is it possible to make the memory a helpful servant unless nothing is allowed to find lodgment there that is not worth while?
An old proverb says, "No one can keep the birds from flying about his head, but one can keep them from nesting in his hair." That proverb points the way to saving the mind from becoming a lodging place for lumbering thoughts and ideas; everything that is certain to hinder instead of help one to be worth-while to the world must be told that there is "positively no admittance."
Among the things one must not afford permission to pass the bars is the thought that some associate may have said or done something that seemed like a slight or an injury. No man can afford to injure another, but any man can better afford to be injured than to allow his thoughts to dwell on the injury, to brood over it, until he is in a degree unfitted for his work. Far better is it to be like a father who said to his son when the latter, years after the commission of the deed, was speaking of his sorrow that he had grieved his father so: "Son, you must be dreaming; I don't recall the incident."
Then one must know when to forget evil things heard of another. Sometimes it is necessary to remember such facts, but so often the insinuations made concerning other people are not worth consideration, because they are not true. Even where there is ground for them, they are not proper subjects for thought and remembrance.
It is best to forget past achievements, unless they are made stepping-stones to greater achievements, spurs to work that could never be done without them. Yet how often the temptation comes to gloat in thought over these things, and over the good things said of one because of them, while opportunities for greater things are passed by. Thus a school-boy thought with delight of a word of commendation from his teacher when he ought to have been giving attention to the recitation of the pupil next to him; the result was a reprimand that stung. A soldier in the trenches has no time to gaze in admiration at the medal he has won by valor when at any moment there may sound the call to deeds of still greater valor. No more should a civilian imperil future success by failure to forget "the things which are behind."
The individual who refuses to forget a kindness he has done to someone else is another cumberer of the ground. A safe rule is, never forget a kindness received from another, but forget at once a kindness done to another. It is not difficult to sympathize with the youth who, after being reminded for the twentieth time by his brother of a trip to New Orleans for which the brother had paid out of his savings, said, "Yes, and I wish I had never taken a cent of the money!"
A thing to be forgotten always is the off-color story with which some people persist in polluting the atmosphere. Unfortunately there are always to be found folks like the young man of whom Donald Hankey said "He talks about things that I won't even think." When such talk is heard, don't think of it. If you do, you are apt to think of it again and again, until, perhaps, you will be telling it to some one else. And no one wants to be remembered as was the business man, proposed for the presidency of a great concern, of whom one said, "No, don't let's have him; he has earned a reputation for telling questionable stories."
If a good memory is to be a good servant, it must be trained to remember only the things that are helpful. And that takes courage! _