Do not our failures and mistakes often come from discouragement? Does not every human being need a believing second self, whose support and approbation shall reinforce one’s failing courage? The saddest hours of life are when we doubt ourselves. To sensitive, excitable people, who expend nervous energy freely, must come many such low tides. “Am I really a miserable failure,—a poor, good-for-nothing, abortive attempt?” In such crises we need another self to restore our equilibrium.
Reproach.
The agony of his self-reproach and despair had been doubled by the reproaches and expostulations of many of his own family friends, who poured upon bare nerves the nitric acid of reproach.
Help from work.
Something definite to do is, in some crises, a far better medicine for a sick soul than any amount of meditation and prayer. One step fairly taken in a right direction goes farther than any amount of agonized back-looking.
Praise and blame.
Praise is sunshine; it warms, it inspires, it promotes growth: blame and rebuke are rain and hail; they beat down and bedraggle, even though they may at times be necessary.