And the task we must do is the near.
If you can't be a highway, then just be a trail,
If you can't be the sun, be a star;
It isn't by the size that you win or you fail-
Be the best of whatever you are!
To cultivate a mental attitude that will bring us peace and freedom from worry, here is
Rule 5:
Let's not imitate others. Let's find ourselves and be ourselves.
Chapter 17: If You Have A Lemon, Make A Lemonade
While writing this book, I dropped in one day at the University of Chicago and asked the
Chancellor, Robert Maynard Hutchins, how he kept from worrying. He replied: "I have
always tried to follow a bit of advice given me by the late Julius Rosenwald, President of
Sears, Roebuck and Company: 'When you have a lemon, make lemonade.' "
That is what a great educator does. But the fool does the exact opposite. If he finds that
life has handed him a lemon, he gives up and says: "I'm beaten. It is fate. I haven't got a
chance." Then he proceeds to rail against the world and indulge in an orgy of self-pity.
But when the wise man is handed a lemon, he says: "What lesson can I learn from this
misfortune? How can I improve my situation? How can I turn this lemon into a
lemonade?"
After spending a lifetime studying people and their hidden reserves of power, the great
psychologist, Alfred Adler, declared that one of the wonder-filled characteristics of
human beings is "their power to turn a minus into a plus."
Here is an interesting and stimulating story of a woman I know who did just that. Her
name is Thelma Thompson, and she lives at 100 Morningside Drive, New York City.
"During the war," she said, as she told me of her experience, "during the war, my
husband was stationed at an Army training camp near the Mojave Desert, in New
Mexico. I went to live there in order to be near him. I hated the place. I loathed it. I had
never before been so miserable. My husband was ordered out on maneuvers in the
Mojave Desert, and I was left in a tiny shack alone. The heat was unbearable-125
degrees in the shade of a cactus. Not a soul to talk to but Mexicans and Indians, and
they couldn't speak English. The wind blew incessantly, and all the food I ate, and the
very air I breathed, were filled with sand, sand, sand!
"I was so utterly wretched, so sorry for myself, that I wrote to my parents. I told them I
was giving up and coming back home. I said I couldn't stand it one minute longer. I
would rather be in jail! My father answered my letter with just two lines-two lines that will
always sing in my memory-two lines that completely altered my life:
Two men looked out from prison bars,
One saw the mud, the other saw stars.
"I read those two lines over and over. I was ashamed of myself. I made up my mind I
would find out what was good in my present situation. I would look for the stars.