ghost. The paroxysm passes. Only I really must cry out: 'Can't you see
what you're missing? Can't you see that you're missing the most
interesting thing on earth, far more interesting than businesses,
empires, and dogs? Doesn't it strike you how clumsy and short-sighted
you are--working always with an inferior machine when you might have a
smooth-gliding perfection? Doesn't it strike you how badly you are
treating yourself?'

Listen, you confirmed grumbler, you who make the evening meal hideous
with complaints against destiny--for it is you I will single out. Are
you aware what people are saying about you behind your back? They are
saying that you render yourself and your family miserable by the habit
which has grown on you of always grumbling. 'Surely it isn't as bad as
that?' you protest. Yes, it is just as bad as that. You say: 'The fact
is, I know it's absurd to grumble. But I'm like that. I've tried to stop
it, and I can't!' How have you tried to stop it? 'Well, I've made up my
mind several times to fight against it, but I never succeed. This is
strictly between ourselves. I don't usually admit that I'm a grumbler.'
Considering that you grumble for about an hour and a half every day of
your life, it was sanguine, my dear sir, to expect to cure such a habit
by means of a solitary intention, formed at intervals in the brain and
then forgotten. No! You must do more than that. If you will daily fix
your brain firmly for half an hour on the truth (you know it to be a
truth) that grumbling is absurd and futile, your brain will henceforward
begin to form a habit in that direction; it will begin to be moulded to
the idea that grumbling is absurd and futile. In odd moments, when it
isn't thinking of anything in particular, it will suddenly remember that
grumbling is absurd and futile. When you sit down to the meal and open
your mouth to say: 'I can't think what my ass of a partner means by--'
it will remember that grumbling is absurd and futile, and will alter the