How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.
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turn every situation to their advantage, while others seem
to be constantly in “ hot water ” and “ bad luck This
is not a matter of destiny, fate, or predestination, but of
constant training in the choice of our experiences by means
of the unconscious application of our scheme of apper¬
ception. We do not learn from our experiences : we make
them to suit our style of life.
Lest this idea, that we do not learn from experience,
should appear too revolutionary, we shall illustrate its
dynamics by a few examples. People who are always
having good luck are usually happy, and need no instruc¬
tion in this matter because their scheme of apperception
must be based on the normal principles of human
cooperation. But the individuals who are forever having
bad luck or “ getting the rough end of the stick ” are a
problem in human understanding. Let us examine such
a case.
John B. is a workman in a furniture factory. He came
to my attention because of a claim that he had been
injured in an industrial accident that had completely
crippled his right arm. The question of the employer’s
responsibility or the worker’s carelessness was raised.
The man was given the usual intelligence test, and was
shown to have an intelligence quotient well above the
average of the workers in the factory. On examination it
appeared that this accident was the culmination of a series
of accidents, all minor in character, which had prevented
John B. from working several weeks. He had, in fact,
had twelve accidents in four months. The factory had all
the latest safeguarding devices that could be obtained,
and John B. was considered an excellent workman when
he was not laid up because of injuries.
The psychiatric investigation revealed that he had
wanted to be an artist all his life. Because of the pressure
of a domineering father and the necessity of assuming a
large part of the responsibility for his family’s finances,
he had been compelled to relinquish his schooling after a
half-year during which he had shown fair promise in his
artistic work. He had been forced, then, to take up a job