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Show Dorothy Dix Talks j I i By DOROTHY DIX. the World's Highest Paid Woman Write I 1 1 BAD MENTAL HABITS The doctors are telling us now that about alf of our 111 health ti the result re-sult of our having permitted ourselves to fall Into bad mental hatblts. We slump mentally, and get narrow nar-row shouldered and narrow chested We eat our Intellectual peas with our knives, so to speak, and we gargle the soup of our opinions, as it were, and fall into divers other bad habits that make us an offense to our fellow fel-low creatures We used to consider that people had a right to think anything they pleased eo long as they didn't translate their meditations into actions that were against the public peace Now, we know better, for as a man thiuketh, so is he. He la well or sick, good or had, an agreeable companion, or an uffllcation to be with, according to bis thoughts. How important, then, that v;e watch our thoughts, and thus prevent ourselves our-selves from forming bad mental habits. hab-its. There 1g self-pity, for instance That j is the favorite indoor amusement of! , countless people No one knows why,! but there is a strange, fierce, savage, J I bitter joy in being sorry for yourself, 'and when once you let your thought j begin to dwell on how cruelly life basj dealt with you, it takes an offort of j the will to wrench them a way. Self-pity becomes an obsession. You can do nothing but think how cruel! it Is of fate to rob you of those yotl love; or how unjust it Is that you have not succeeded, or how terrible It is that you are poor; or how sad It is that you are sick You become so doped with your own misery that i ambition Is paralyzed and energy killed, kill-ed, and eventually you drown in your own tears. If ou are firmly convinced vourseif, that you are unlucky and that the nnM to nrrnlnot ...... ,U.t II U n . ' " iu u (ifaiujL j iju auu Llia I ill: given you a rotten deal, you will be unlucky and tho world will be against you and the cards will be stacked .-.gainst you, for to succeed wo must have faith and hope and enthusiasm.' and if we discard these of our own free will we bring our misfortune.- down upon our own heads. Therefore when you feel Inclined to pity yourself, your-self, turn your sympathies towards someone else Self pity is a luxury' nobody can afford. Another bad mental habit which we do well to avoid forming Is (hat of talking about ourselves. Of course It is perfectly natural that each of us should be the center of our own llltie universe, and that wo should be more interested In our own dinners than we are in starving nations, and that the! great world problem should not thrill1 us as much as whether Mamie is invlt-; ed to such and such a party or Johnny John-ny makes the football team It Is human and Inevitable that wej should meditate with pleasure upon1 our own achievements, and the mar velous perfection of our wives, and l husbands and children, and dooks, and! automobiles, but. surely we might also, entertain a passing thought that these purply personal subjects are of interest inter-est only to riurs'l03. The outside world does not care a1 whoop about our personal affairs un-' less they are of a scandalous nature.. Nobody wants to hear the stories of! our lives Nobody cares whether our daughters are belles or wall flowers at parties, or whether our sons make their classes in college or not. Still less does anyone want to hear of the " - - m w-wv smart things our infant prodigies say ' and do. Then why should we not cut it out j when we realize that we aro falling into the bad habit of talking about our children and ourselves? What bore-dom bore-dom wo should save our acquain-I acquain-I lances What lies and deceit wo should preserve our friends from, who stifle theii yawns behind their hands and try to look interested as we maunder on and on with the dreary annals of our households. Another bad mental habit that we fall Info 1b that of Interfering In 'other people's affairs. This is' the besetting vice of age, and it behooves :ua to watch out for the first symp ! torn of tills deadly habit as wo grow older. Every family has in it the chronic interferer You cannot rise up or sit down, or eat or fast, or sleep or wake. I or walk or rid?, or read a book or put on a garment, or do any single thing on earth that the interferer does not want to know why you don't do i. the other way, and involve you in long explanations and iirguments There Is no other one thing that would do so much to promote domes tic harmony, make happy homes, and prevent divorce as for u.s to break ourselves of the habit of butting into the purely personal affairs of those with whom we live For the eternal nagging that makes most homes a hell on tarth Is nothing but a silly habit founded on a tyrannical spirit. Most wives don't really caro whether wheth-er their husbands smoke or not, or whether they wear a plaid necktie or a striped one. Nor do husbands care whether their v, ives go 'o pictura shows or wear blue or pink dresses. Nor do parents really consider It a matter of importance whetJher their children do any one of hundred things they are forbidden to do It is Just that husbands and wIvps and parents have formed tho bad mental habit of interfering in matters that do not concern con-cern them, and they ignore the fact that the one. thing that is most prec ious in all the world to each of us is our individual liberty Give us that, and wo will forgive aDy other offense toward us. Let's all take a careful survey of our menial habits and cure ourselves of the bad ones. on |