You are better than you think!

A man in the middle of his life sat before me, staring into nothing. Although he had an appointment with me, he did not utter a word after he sat down in the chair near my desk. A minute of silence passed, which I broke with my questions; yet it was as though he did not feel my presence at all, for he did not turn toward me or shift his gaze, fixed on the floor of the room. The only signs of life in his face were the movement of his lips, which he pressed together from time to time, and the fluttering of his eyelashes.

I asked him what was troubling him, and he made no answer. I reminded him that he had an appointment with me and that my time was precious. Then he turned toward me, and I was able to observe his pale face and his eyes sunken deep in their sockets. I noticed the confusion apparent on his face, and the first thing he uttered was: "I am good for nothing. Please give me a sedative pill or some remedy to bring me out of my misery. I thought of suicide — the only means of my deliverance — but there I stopped, for religion forbids it."

Before this, I had faced the same situation with a wretched girl. She was thirty years old, unmarried, living in perpetual loneliness, and she had come to the point of suicide, but was held back by her fear

of failing in the attempt. Her great complaint was loneliness: "No man has asked for my hand, though I feel my fitness for the burdens of motherhood and marriage." So she said: "What has happened to me? What have I done?" And she burst into sobbing...

In the soul of each of us there is something good, which others may not notice because we hide it from their eyes. On the basis of this theory I dealt with these two persons: I guided them toward understanding the good sides in their own souls, so that they might use them as a weapon against the deficiency that had overpowered them.

If we think for a moment, we see that many people lack sympathy, gentleness, and the capacity to understand and forgive others; nor are they able to give love in return, or to arm themselves with courage, hope, self-confidence, will, and ambition — then honesty, frankness, friendship, and the love of helping others. It is this list of names that places man where he stands in the rank of living creatures. But are these gifts appreciated? And if we do appreciate them, do we use them?

It often happens that we understand the evil in ourselves and neglect the good; and this begins in childhood, when we say to the child: "Don't do this or that. What will people say about you? Wait till your father comes and I tell him what you have done; no one will love you, and your mother is ashamed to call you her son." Thus we see that we have planted, in the soul of this good young plant, sin and the feeling of deficiency and shame; and the idea of