| Things to Live For |
Chapter 8 |
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We find abundant illustration of this in al our common life. The intercourse of many homes is marred and spoiled by exhibitions of this thoughtless spirit. Family life should be a blending of all the tastes, dispositions, talents, gifts, and resources of all the members of the household. In each one there should be self restraint. No member may live in a home circle as if he were dwelling alone in a great house, with only himself to consider. He must repress much in himself for the sake of the other members. He must do many things which he might not do if he were alone, because he is a member of a little community, whose happiness and good he is to seek at every point. No household life can ever be made truly ideal by all having always their own way.
But many persons who are tied up in family life forget this. They expect to live as regardlessly of others as if they were living alone. They consider no one’s comfort, peace, or pleasure but their own. They let their own impulses have full and free expression. They make no effort to repress any elements or dispositions in themselves which tend to give pain to others. They demand all their rights, not remembering that the other members of the family have rights too, and that home happiness can be secured only by the mutual surrender of rights, each in honor preferring the others, each seeking not to be ministered unto, but to minister.
This exacting spirit leads to continual thoughtlessness. Thoughtfulness is thinking of others, and modifying ones’ conduct so as to avoid whatever would give trouble, inconvenience, or hurt to others. A child had a beautiful canary bird. From morning till night it sang, and its song filled all the house. But the child’s mother was ill – so ill that even the singing of the bird, which to the boy was such delicious music, disturbed and distressed her. He put it into a part of the house as far away as possible from the sickroom, thinking that the sound could not reach his mother’s ears. But the shrill singing still came into the room, and pained the weak invalid.
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