\u201cIf You Want to Gather Honey, Don\u2019t Kick Over the Beehive.\\”\u00a0Dale Carnegie
\nWhen dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity.
\nBitter criticism caused the sensitive Thomas Hardy, one of the finest novelists ever to enrich English literature, to give up forever the writing of fiction. Criticism drove Thomas Chatterton, the English poet, to suicide.
\nBenjamin Franklin, tactless in his youth, became so diplomatic, so adroit at handling people, that he was made American Ambassador to France. The secret of his success? \u201cI will speak ill of no man,\u201d he said, \u201c…and speak all the good I know of everybody.\u201d
\nAny fool can criticize, condemn and complain\u2014and most fools do.\u00a0 But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.
\n\u201cA great man shows his greatness,\u201d said Carlyle, \u201cby the way he treats little men.\u201d\u00a0 Bob Hoover, a famous test pilot and frequent performer at air shows, was returning to his home in Los Angeles from an air show in San Diego. As described in the magazine Flight Operations, at three hundred feet in the air, both engines suddenly stopped. By deft maneuvering he managed to land the plane, but it was badly damaged although nobody was hurt.
\nHoover\u2019s first act after the emergency landing was to inspect the airplane\u2019s fuel. Just as he suspected, the World War II propeller plane he had been flying had been fueled with jet fuel rather than gasoline.
\nUpon returning to the airport, he asked to see the mechanic who had serviced his airplane. The young man was sick with the agony of his mistake. Tears streamed down his face as Hoover approached. He had just caused the loss of a very expensive plane and could have caused the loss of three lives as well.
\nYou can imagine Hoover\u2019s anger. One could anticipate the tongue-lashing that this proud and precise pilot would unleash for that carelessness. But Hoover didn\u2019t scold the mechanic; he didn\u2019t even criticize him. Instead, he put his big arm around the man\u2019s shoulder and said, \u201cTo show you I\u2019m sure that you\u2019ll never do this again, I want you to service my F-51 tomorrow.\u201d\u00a0 Dale Carnegie. \u201cHow to Win Friends & Influence People.\u201d<\/p>\n
FATHER FORGETS Listen, son: I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little paw crumpled under your cheek and the blond curls stickily wet on your damp forehead. I have stolen into your room alone. Just a few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me. Guiltily I came to your bedside. \u201cIf You Want to Gather Honey, Don\u2019t Kick Over the Beehive.\\”\u00a0Dale Carnegie When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity. Bitter criticism caused the sensitive Thomas Hardy, one of the finest …<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>W. Livingston Larned<\/em><\/p>\n
\nThere are the things I was thinking, son: I had been cross to you. I scolded you as you were dressing for school because you gave your face merely a dab with a towel. I took you to task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of your things on the floor.
\nAt breakfast I found fault, too. You spilled things. You gulped down your food. You put your elbows on the table. You spread butter too thick on your bread. And as you started off to play and I made for my train, you turned and waved a hand and called, \u201cGoodbye, Daddy!\u201d and I frowned, and said in reply, \u201cHold your shoulders back!\u201d
\nThen it began all over again in the late afternoon. As I came up the road I spied you, down on your knees, playing marbles. There were holes in your stockings. I humiliated you before your boyfriends by marching you ahead of me to the house. Stockings were expensive\u2014and if you had to buy them you would be more careful! Imagine that, son, from a father!
\nDo you remember, later, when I was reading in the library, how you came in timidly, with a sort of hurt look in your eyes? When I glanced up over my paper, impatient at the interruption, you hesitated at the door. \u201cWhat is it you want?\u201d I snapped.
\nYou said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge, and threw your arms around my neck and kissed me, and your small arms tightened with an affection that God had set blooming in your heart and which even neglect could not wither. And then you were gone, pattering up the stairs.
\nWell, son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slipped from my hands and a terrible sickening fear came over me. What has habit been doing to me? The habit of finding fault, of reprimanding\u2014this was my reward to you for being a boy. It was not that I did not love you; it was that I expected too much of youth. I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years.
\nAnd there was so much that was good and fine and true in your character. The little heart of you was as big as the dawn itself over the wide hills. This was shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush in and kiss me good night. Nothing else matters tonight, son. I have come to your bedside in the darkness, and I have knelt there, ashamed!
\nIt is a feeble atonement; I know you would not understand these things if I told them to you during your waking hours. But tomorrow I will be a real daddy! I will chum with you, and suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you laugh I will bite my tongue when impatient words come. I will keep saying as if it were a ritual: He is nothing but a boy\u2014a little boy!
\nI am afraid I have visualized you as a man. Yet as I see you now, son, crumpled and weary in your cot, I see that you are still a baby. Yesterday you were in your mother\u2019s arms, your head on her shoulder. I have asked too much, too much. (end of story)
\nInstead of condemning people, let\u2019s try to understand them. Let\u2019s try to figure out why they do what they do. That\u2019s a lot more profitable and intriguing than criticism; and it breeds sympathy, tolerance and kindness. \u201cTo know all is to forgive all.\u201d
\nAs Dr. Johnson said: \u201cGod himself, sir, does not propose to judge man until the end of his days. \u00a0 Why should you and I?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"