e it as a sign-board telling us that the
other way than the one we just followed leads to the goal. And we can
follow its pointing finger with faith in a new attempt because, now, we
know at least how _not_ to go. We can learn despair from all the bitter
and the hateful and the mean; or we can learn that they never could be
called so if there were not the sweet, the lovable, and the generous
with which to compare them. You can learn to search as with a microscope
for all the undesirable traits of your patients, or you can calmly
accept all that assert themselves as undeniable facts, but use your
microscope to find their desirable characteristics which offer
possibilities of being brought to the foreground.

You cannot constructively help yourself or your patient by denying the
existence of the less worthy traits; but you can resolve to call out the
something better. And if you do not find it, as may rarely be the case,
you can refuse to let it make you skeptical of finding it in others. Let
us remember always that, "It is not things or conditions or people that
harm us; it is only the way we respond to them that can hurt." This one
great truth, if really believed and made a part of all our thinking,
would save scores of people from nervous wreckage. It is a favorite
saying of a wise man who has helped a great many people to endure and
take new courage when life seemed too hard to meet.

That big, broken-arm case on the ward cursed you yesterday because you
would not loosen his splints. And you rushed from the room angry and
humiliated, wishing you could quit nursing forever, and asked to be
moved because you had been insulted. But that man cannot harm you. He
has never known a real lady in his life before. His training from
childhood has been to regard women as chattels to do man's bidding; his
experience in life is that they usually do what he asks--women of his
kind. Moreover, he has never had a serious pain before, and it is not to
be endured.

Of course, the man must be dealt with and made to realize the
distinction between his new surroundings and the old. Probably the
intern or the doctor is the one to do it. Also he must be brought to
apologize, or leave the hospital, perhaps. But he did not hurt you. Your
own reaction did that. For outside things or people cannot damage what
we are in ourselves. The way we respond to them does the harm. When you
can control your expression of anger and humiliation, and substit