Injustice and the Perpetual Grievance
Not so long ago it was our habit to pass by a certain small shop on our way to work, and we fell frequently into conversation with the owner of the place. On every such occaision we were regaled with stories of hard luck and of injustice. Our friend was oppressed by an ever-present sense of having been the object of unfair treatment. He was a man with a perpetual grievance. One day we found his door shut and bolted. A card on the door bore the unpleasant word that he had gone into bankruptcy and his premises were closed by creditors. We fancied that this unhappy event bore some relation to his tales of woe. Not that his complaints had actually driven customers away. We doubt that they did. The shopkeeper was not a wholly uninteresting man, else we should not so often have tarried at his store. The grudges he bore may not actively have caused his downfall, but they were evidences of a state of mind which rarely attends successful effort. Every man and woman runs up against injustice and unfairness at times, but the large minded person forgets them in his absorption with his own concerns. If one allows them to rankle, they distract his attention from his work and keep him from concentrating his efforts upon the big jobs he should be tackling. If one succeeds in convincing every hearer that his teachers, his friends, his associates, his competitors, have done badly by him, he has at best won an empty victory. Better far that he forget even legimitate grievances and turn an unfettered mind to constructive tasks. Weekly News Review
from The White City Register, White City, Kansas May 22, 1930
