Self Help
"I'm sorry to have brought you out in all this rain, but
I wanted to make the ten o'clock train with my friend here, and I was
hitting it up around thirty-five miles an hour."
"No, you were only going twenty-eight miles an hour," replied the officer, "and as long as you are so nice about it I will let you off this time if you will watch yourself hereafter."
And that, too, was imagination!
Even a traffic cop will listen to reason when approached in the right manner, but woe unto the motorist who tries to bully the cop into believing his speedometer was not registering properly.
There is one form of imagination against which I would caution you. It is the brand, which prompts some people to imagine that they can get something for nothing, or that they can force themselves ahead in the world without observing the rights of others.
There are more than 160,000 prisoners in the penal institutions of the United States, practically every one of whom is in prison because he imagined he could play the game of life without observing the rights of his fellow men. There is a man in the Ohio penitentiary who has served more than thirty-five years of time for forgery, and the largest amount he ever got from his misapplication of imagination was twelve dollars.
There are a few people who direct their imaginations in the vain attempt to work out a way to show what happens when "an immovable body comes in contact with an irresistible force," but these types belong in the psychopathic hospitals. There is also another form of misapplied imagination; namely, that of the young boy or girl who knows more about life than his or her "Dad."
But this form is subject to modification with time. My
own boys have taught me many things that my "Dad" tried, in vain, to teach
me when I was their age. Time and imagination (which is often but the
product of time) teach us many things, but nothing of more importance than
this:
That all men are much alike in many ways. If you would know what your customer is thinking, Mr. Salesman, study yourself and find out what you would be thinking if you were in your customer's place. Study yourself, find out what are the motives which actuate you in the performance of certain deeds and cause you to refrain from performing other deeds, and you will have gone far toward perfecting yourself in the accurate use of imagination.