If I Am Not Happy With Me

From a thoughtful observer of human behavior, this sentence seems significant: “If I am not happy with me, other people suffer.” Our attitude and actions toward others often depend more upon how we feel than upon what they do. When we are tired or troubled we may react impatiently, critically; but when we are relaxed and untroubled we may react quire differently to precisely the same situation. What we feel inside, what we know concerning ourselves, often determines our reaction to others. For example, people are not likely to be pleasant when they have a sense of guilt, when they are fighting themselves inside. Sometimes young people decide to rebel, to disobey, to live contrary to counsel, and when they do they begin to fight themselves, and so become unpleasant and unhappy wherever they are. This reminds us of a simple sentence form Abraham Lincoln: “When I do good I feel good, and when I don’t do good I don’t feel good.” With all of us, it is just that simple. We may say, as Shakespeare said it, “The time is out of joint” when it may be we who are out of joint. If we are studying well, doing well, meeting our obligations, seeing people without a sense of apology, we are pleasant with people. On the other hand, we tend to dislike those whom we have wronged or mistreated because we dislike ourselves for doing it⎯and when we dislike ourselves, we dislike others also. It is bad enough to suffer for our own mistakes, but worse to make others suffer for things they didn’t do. The remedy is to live in honor and cleanliness and kindness so we can avoid accusing ourselves and quarreling with conscience. “When I do good I feel good, and when I don’t do good I don’t feel good.” “If I am not happy with me, other people suffer.”