Thoughts to Build On

They are more to be pitied than condemned,
because they suffer much more than do their understand-
ably annoyed but nevertheless sympathetic companions.
The Hypersensitive Ones-why must they suffer
so much unhappiness? Let's ask a famous psychologist, Dr.
Maxwell Maltz.
Dr. Maltz says that the reason is self-pity. Then
he describes their condition as follows: "The frustrated
person compensates for self-pity by excessive smoking,
excessive drinking, compulsive overwork (or imagined
overwork), or withdrawal by escapism through radio, tele-
vision or aimless reading-or turns upon other persons by
exhibiting rudeness, irritability, nagging or fault-finding,
stimulated by hypersensitivity."
You will meet many such people with exactly
those syndromes (or most of them) in business, in school,
among your associates, almost everywhere you go. (You
might even try checking each symptom listed by Dr. Maltz
to see if it applies to you!)
What do all these hypersensitive people have
in common-EXCEPT the foregoing symptoms?
They seldom, if ever, laugh!
If hypersensitive people would only learn to
laugh their way through life, they would be released from
their self-centered unhappiness into a new, relaxed, joyful
world of happiness and laughter.
Of course, there are times when laughter is out
of place. I am not suggesting that you laugh in the presence
of someone's sadness or at any time when laughter would