26. Test Whether You Have Really Learned

A small test for whether you have really learned. Compare how you take another person's loss to how you take your own.

The will of nature can be learned from those things in which we do not differ from one another.

When a neighbor's boy breaks a cup, we are quick to say, "These things will happen."

Remember, then, that when your own cup breaks, you ought to feel the same way you felt when the other was broken.

Carry this across into greater matters. Has someone else's child died, or wife? There is no one who will not say, "This is what happens to human beings."

When someone's own child dies, though, the first word is, "Oh, how wretched am I."

We should remember how we felt when we heard the very same thing about another.

What this means. Use other people's losses as a mirror. If you can see them clearly there, you can learn to see your own that way too.