HERE'S YOUR LINE by TV star LADY BARNETT
How to be a good loser
The top isn't the only place on the ladder, there are comfortable footholds lower down.
The People who envy others their success and happiness are often those who have set themselves impossibly high standards. Not content with their own small triumphs they aim at a target only a super marksman could touch.
And when they fail, how unfairly they explain away their failures: " If only I had her money, her looks, her clothes, her chances." You've heard that sour refrain; it always makes me want to shake the silly, envious grumbler and say: " Look at your money, your looks, your blessings and make the best of them."
But of course such people never do make the best of anything. They prefer to remain discontented onlookers, spoiling their own happiness and that of everyone round them.
The disabled can teach the rest of us so much about personal limitations. Though blind or gravely incapacitated, they find rich compensations in life and are rarely envious of the eyes and limbs of others.
Let me tell you something about my own limitations. There are many, but one I realized early in life was my total lack of talent for organization. Although I was often tempted to pretend that I had such a talent, I decided instead to let myself be organized, willingly and happily, by someone else.
I am happy to work behind the scenes, and I never allow myself to criticize the organizer or get huffy if she doesn't do things as I would have done them-I know I couldn't do the job half as well !
Once you've learned to be a good loser, defeat becomes progressively easier to accept; and the occasional triumph has an extra glow about it.
I am not for a moment suggesting that people should resign themselves to failure, but I do believe they should accept it with the firm resolve to do better next time.
Those who set out not to win but to do their level best are the real winners, for there is nothing like the satisfaction of knowing you have done a job well.
Apart from anything else, envy is such a vicious waste of energy. Coveting somebody else’s luck won't bring it any nearer to you.
But being to count your blessings and you'll find the number increases with every tally.
"Triumph has an extra glow when you've learned to take defeat," says Lady Barnett
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A better part next time GEOFFREY MORRIS TOOK THE PICTURES
Silence fell on the amateur dramatic club. The producer was about to read the cast list. Brenda and Maureen waited eagerly. Both hoped for the leading role Brenda had got it. Maureen, though sadly disappointed congratulated her rival. "You deserved to get it," she said, "I think you'll be wonderful in that part" On the night, Maureen waited for her cue and resolved to do her best in the small part of the maid. She thought: Perhaps next time I'll play the lead .
Maureen took the sensible and courageous view of the situation. Though she had been really keen to get the lead, she didn't allow her disappointment to strain relations between her and Brenda and spoil the happy atmosphere of the amateur dramatic company.
She had joined the club for fun, and she was wise not to look on the loss of the lead in one play as a life and death affair. Maureen could have sulked and acted half-heartedly in her small part, but she was determined, without upsetting the balance of the play, to turn the mousy little role of the maid into a memorable performance. If she succeeded, she would deserve a good part in the next production. .............Isobel Barnett
NEXT WEEK: Frills for the family
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