THE TELEPHONE BELL
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling went the telephone bell. I was hard at work on an abstract proposition where an interruption of my thought meant chaos for a while. My telephone had the habit of ringing a couple of dozen times a day on calls which were not for me, and when I called up central to complain about it all the satisfaction I received was “Excuse me, please.”
Already my ’phone had rung a number of times this morning, only to be met by central’s “Excuse me, please” when I answered it, and I was in a state of exasperation that almost bordered on a desire to murder some one.
Several times I had almost gotten to the point in which my abstract problem seemed to be solved. Twice, just as I was about to grasp its solution, did the telephone bell ring only for me to hear the old familiar “Excuse me, please.”
I had complained to the management about these mistakes, the poor service, etc. Men had been sent to inspect my ’phone and its connections; many parts of the ’phone had been changed and finally an entire new instrument had been installed, but still the irritation and annoyance of calls not for me continued.
I had scolded central and given her “Hail Columbia” many times because of her alleged carelessness, but all to no avail, and the calls which were not for me still kept coming and my annoyance increased rather than diminished. Nothing I had ever said or done and nothing the Telephone Company seemed able to do appearedto have any effect in stopping these calls.
Merrily my bell rang on from twenty to twenty-five times a day on calls which were mistakes. It seemed as though “Old Nick” himself was using the telephone to see how much he could irritate and annoy me, and here the ting-a-ling-ling-ling of his material representative was once more ringing in my ears and the solution of my problem again gone glimmering.
Impatiently I grabbed the telephone receiver and placed it to my ear, yelling into the transmitter a “Hello” that for its acidity, irritability, impatience and petulance could not be surpassed. I resolved to give central in particular and the Telephone Company in general such a “jacking up” as they would never forget, should it be another call which was not for me, and at the same time order my ’phone taken out as it was proving to be a greater annoyance andtrouble than its convenience would balance or offset.
No answer came to my “Hello.” I called again and again in my impatient and irritated state of consciousness. Finally central answered saying, “What number, please?” It was a new voice on my wire; a voice that was filled with friendly feeling and good fellowship; one that unconsciously made union with the universal harmony and so felt only the “good” in everything, that all my irritation, annoyance and sarcasm at once disappeared and I replied in a voice which was new to me so filled with harmony were its tones, “You called me?” “Excuse me, please,” said central, and I hung up my receiver and sat back in my chair without another word.
My ’phone did not ring any more that day, neither did I again take up the solution of the abstract problem on which I had beenworking, for another one filled my thought world and this is the problem and its solution.
“Why did my ’phone ring so many times each day on calls which were not for me?”
Back of every effect lies the cause which produces it. Back of every material thing is the energy which creates it. Nothing happens—nothing occurs by chance, accident or luck, no matter how much it may seem to do so.
Looking at the matter concretely of the numerous ’phone calls I had which were not for me, the Telephone Company was to blame, but they had made every effort on their part to correct the trouble and it seemed to get worse instead of better.
I asked myself the question “Where did the blamerightlybelong? To the Telephone Company or to myself?”
I saw that the real solution to this question was in the abstract for before anything can be reduced to the concrete or material side of life it must be created first in the abstract.
How then could I be to blame? Through the use I made of energy in the abstract by the kind of thoughts and emotions I allowed to persist in my imagination and field of consciousness.
I had been irritable, impatient, intolerant, sarcastic, critical, condemnatory, not only with the Telephone Company but more or less with other people and things. This was using energy inharmoniously in the abstract and there could be only one result which was its materialization as inharmony in the concrete, and I had been getting that materialization in the annoyance and irritation which so many mistakes in the telephone calls had given me. I also saw that was only one of the ways in which I had beenmaterializing concretely the energy I had been using inharmoniously in the abstract.
I determined to begin work on myself at once to change the state of consciousness in me which had permitted this condition to arise and demonstrate the truth or falsity of my solution of the problem.
It is quite easy to make “good” resolutions, but it is a much more difficult thing to live them out in one’s daily life. My first attempts were abject failures, but I refused to be discouraged and kept working with myself each day. No matter how many times I failed I renewed my “good” resolutions each time and became even more determined to carry them out. My idea wasnot to repressmy annoyance, impatience, irritation, and inharmony, but todisplace them with kindness and harmony. Some of my first attempts were most ludicrous and bordered on the tragic but I kept at it.
The progress seemed so slow at first that frequently I would be almost overwhelmed with the thought of the impossibility of my ever accomplishing the desired end but something inside of me would again get hold of and urge me on. In a couple of months’ time I could begin to see some improvement, as there would be some days when I would not have more than half as many calls as usual. In six months’ time I had done the work so well that days went by when I did not have one single call which was not for me.
All this occurred a number of years ago and since then the calls which are not for me have disappeared entirely and it is a rare instance now for such a thing to occur.
This experience and its solution taught me the lesson of “Who is to blame,” and since then when anything has come into my life which was at all inclined to be inharmonious in its effects,instead of blaming some one else for it I have at once gotten busy with myself and created more harmony in my own consciousness, and through such creation have been able to displace all inharmonious effects and transmute them into “good” effects.