"I don't blame you one iota for feeling as you do. If I were you I would undoubtedly feel just as you do."
You deserve very little credit for being what you are - and remember, the people who come to you irritated, bigoted, unreasoning, deserve very little discredit for being what they are. Feel sorry for the poor devils. Pity them. Sympathize with them. Say to yourself: "There, but for the grace of God, go I."
Three-fourths of the people you will ever meet are hungering and thirsting for sympathy. Give it to them, and they will love you.
I said to myself, "After all, if I were she, I would probably feel just as she does." So, I determined to sympathize with her viewpoint.
I had the satisfaction of controlling my temper, the satisfaction of returning kindness for an insult.
"When you get a letter like that, the first thing you do is to think how you can be severe with a person who has committed an impropriety, or even been a little impertinent. Then you may compose an answer. Then if you are wise, you will put the letter in a drawer and lock the drawer. Take it out in the course of two days - such communications will always bear two days' delay in answering - and when you take it out after the interval, you will not send it." - Taft
"Sympathy the human species universally craves. The child eagerly displays his injury; or even inflicts a cut or bruise in order to reap abundant sympathy. For the same purpose adults show their bruises, relate their accidents, illness, especially details of surgical operations. 'Self-pity' for misfortunes real or imaginary is, in some measure, practically a universal practice." - Dr. Arthur I. Gates
Principle 9: Be sympathetic with other person's ideas and desires.
--
No comments:
Post a Comment