ondering where the barometer
stands and whether people are going to be quiet, feeling his feelings
and worrying because no one else feels them, forever wasting his
energy in exaggerated reactions to normal situations.

This "ticklish" person is not better equipped than his neighbor, but
more poorly equipped. True adjustment to the environment requires the
faculty of putting out from consciousness all stimuli that do not
require conscious attention. The nervous person is lacking in this
faculty, but he usually fails to realize that this lack places him in
the class of defectives. A paralyzed man is a cripple because he
cannot run with the crowd; a nervous individual is a cripple, but only
because he thinks that to run with the crowd lacks distinction.
Something depends on the accident of birth, but far more depends on
his own choice. Understanding, judicious neglect of symptoms,
whole-souled absorption in other interests, and a good look in the
mirror, are sure to put him back in the running with a wholesome
delight in being once more "like folks."

CHAPTER XV

_In which we learn discrimination_

CHOOSING OUR EMOTIONS

LIKING THE TASTE

It was a summer evening by the seaside, and a group of us were sitting
on the porch, having a sort of heart-to-heart talk about
psychology,--which means, of course, that we were talking about
ourselves. One by one the different members of the family spoke out
the questions that had been troubling them, or brought up their
various problems of character or of health. At length a splendid Red
Cross nurse who had won medals for distinguished service in the early
days of the war, broke out with the question: "Doctor, how can I get
rid of my terrible temper? Sometimes it is very bad, and always it has
been one of the trials of my life." She spoke earnestly and sincerely,
but this was my answer: "You like your temper. Something in you enjoys
it, else you would give it up." Her face was a study in astonishment.
"I don't like it," she stammered; "always after I have had an
outburst of anger I am in the depths of remorse. Many a time I have
cried my eyes out over this very thing." "And you like that, too," I
answered. "You are having an emotional spree, indulging yourself first
in one kind of emotion and then in another. If you really hated it as
much as you say you do, you would never allow yourself the indulgence,
much less speak of it afterward." Her astonishment was still furthe