Article May 24, 1947 Issue

Why Feel Sorry for Yourself?

LOUISE WHEATLEY COOK HOVNANIAN

That which is called self-pity is as old as Adam. One of the first instances on record is that of a woman whose supply of water for herself and her little son had been exhausted, and she feared that he would perish of thirst. There was really a well of water close at hand, but she could not see it because she was sitting hopelessly on the desert sands, blinded by her own tears.

If some distressed mortal of today ever seems to find himself in a similar situation, confronted by a difficulty from which there appears to be no way of escape, let him ponder for a moment the experience of Hagar, the Egyptian, as recorded in the twenty-first chapter of Genesis. Did self-pity afford her any aid in finding the answer to her problem?

Self-pity never does anything for us except to make us feel worse. To be sorry for ourselves is not in accord with the teachings of Christian Science, which never encourage us to sit down and weep. Rather do they counsel us to continue to pray earnestly and trustingly for divine guidance, and then to act upon it. To feel sorry for oneself results from entertaining a mistaken sense of man's true identity, and a false premise inevitably leads to a false conclusion. Accepting the spiritual fact contained in the beloved disciple's words (I John 3:2), "Now are we the sons of God," we cannot feel sorry for ourselves. For it is unthinkable that the son of God should ever be an object of pity.

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