The Difference In Thinking

THE DIFFERENCE IN THINKING T he English poet Frederick Langbridge (1849-1923) certainly gave us food for thought when he penned the following couplet: Two men look out through the same bars One sees the mud and one the stars. This same point was made–rather more effectively–by a Persian poet who said; “The difference between you and me is only one of hearing. Where you hear a door close, I hear it open.” Tafawot ast mian e shenidan e man o to, To bastan e dar, man fath e bab mishenawam. There is no rose without thorns, but one who broods on the existence of thorns without giving any thought to the beauty of the roses above them is like the man who looks at mud in preference to the stars. Social conditions are always a combination of roses and thorns, mud and stars; and it is only the wise man who knows how much importance to give to each. The man who concentrates solely on thorns and mud will be the man who can only hear doors closing and never hear them opening. Most social problems are problems of the mind. They are almost always capable of being solved by changes of attitude and ways of thinking. It is a question of inculcating the right ways of thinking at the appropriate stage in a man’s