5/13/34

I like to be wrong. One’s handling of a situation in which he has predicted wrong may be made to speak more for his experience and sagacity than that of one in which he has predicted right. The inexperienced fret and fume about the reverse of events as if it were the first time such had ever happened. The wise judge will put it down that the prophet just now making his first mistake can have had little experience, else there would have been scores of mistakes behind him and he would have known how to handle the situation more effectively. For instance, if I predict that the low hanging clouds will dissipate and that the day will be hotter than any this year and we go ahead on the picnic and get drenched for six solid hours waiting for the downpour to stop long enough for us to dry some wood, the soaked picnickers will come to me for an explanation. If I pace the floor and shake my fists at the heavens, cursing this as the first time I had ever missed guessing the elements, they will look at me askance, doubting, and my sour attitude will serve but to deepen the gloom. This is wrong. I must grin, shake out my own floppy, sticky clothing, and admit that I had made a mistake – one which had damaged my personal belongings just as much as those of anyone else in the party. If this procedure doesn’t convince them that the mistake was negligible, it will at least (about this time the car came for me; it did not rain – and hasn’t ‘til yet (5-22-34)