This seems comical--almost ridiculous--to think of seeking an annoyance
in order to get rid of it; but, after laughing at it first, look at the
idea seriously, and you will see it is common sense. When you have
learned to relax to the woman who rocks you have learned to relax to
other similar annoyances. You have been working on a principle that
applies generally. You have acquired a good habit which can never
really fail you.

If my friend had invited Mrs. Smith to supper and served baked beans
for the sake of relaxing out of the tension of her resistance to the
sugar, then she could have conquered that resistance. But to try to
conquer an annoyance like that without knowing how to yield in some way
would be, so far as I know, an impossibility. Of course, we would
prefer that our friends should not have any disagreeable, ill-bred,
personal ways, but we can go through the world without resisting them,
and there is no chance of helping any one out of them through our own
resistances.

On the other hand a way may open by which the woman's attention is
called to the very unhealthy habit of rocking--or eating sugar on
beans--if we are ready, without resistance, to point it out to her. And
if no way opens we have at least put ourselves out of bondage to her.
The second way in which other people get on our nerves is more serious
and more difficult. Mrs. So-and-so may be doing very wrong--really very
wrong; or some one who is nearly related to us may be doing very
wrong--and it may be our most earnest and sincere desire to set him
right. In such cases the strain is more intense because we really have
right on our side, in our opinion, if not in our attitude toward the
other person. Then, to recognize that if some one else chooses to do
wrong it is none of our business is one of the most difficult things to
do--for a woman, especially.

It is more difficult to recognize practically that, in so far as it may
be our business, we can best put ourselves in a position to enable the
other person to see his own mistake by dropping all personal resistance
to it and all personal strain about it. Even a mother with her son can
help him to be a man much more truly if she stops worrying about and
resisting his unmanliness.

"But," I hear some one say, "that all seems like such cold
indifference." Not at all--not at all. Such freedom from strain can be
found only through a more actively affectionate interest in others. The
more we