Did you ever hear of "The Displacement Principle"? The idea is that you can only get rid of a bad thing by replacing it with a good thing. For example, consider life's disappointments. All of us at one time or another lose a hope or a dream: we don't get a promotion or we're not good enough to make the team. Do we just grin and bear it or rather should we replace one hope by another. Rather than leaving an empty place in our lives, we give our thoughts and energy to a new dream, a new endeavor. Alexander Graham Bell failed to create the hearing aid he envisioned. So he turned his attention to something else. The result was the telephone. When we lose something, rather than just brood about it, we need to give our attention and our energy to something else. The same thing is true about our sorrows. The best way to get rid of our sorrows is to help someone else to cope with theirs. There is a story about a crippled little boy whose parents brought him to a dog pound to pick out a puppy. He examined all the animals and finally picked out a pathetic little animal with an injured leg. When asked why he didn't choose one of the healthy animals, he replied "Me and him will understand one another". When we help someone else through their sorrows, we will most often rid ourselves of ours as well. Replace a bad thing with a good thing. Try it! It often works!
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