I am often annoyed by people who complain about the heat in April or the cold in October. The fact is it gets hot every year and it gets cold every year; I've been around for a while, and I can't see why it surprises so many, year after year. I ran across this story while reading Theodore Roosevelt's autobiography, which I think illustrates the folly of complaining perfectly.
The following is taken from "The Autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt":
There was a very hot spell one midsummer while I was police commissioner, and most of each night I spent walking through the tenement-house districts and visiting stations to see what was being done. It was a tragic week. We did everything possible to alleviate the suffering. Much of it was heart-breaking, especially the gasping misery of the little children and of the worn-out mothers. Every resource of the Health Department, of the Police Department, and even the Fire Department (which flooded the hot streets) was taxed in the effort to render service. The heat killed such multitudes of horses that the means at our disposal for removing the poor dead beasts proved quite inadequate, although every nerve was strained to the limit. In consequence we received scores of complaints from persons before whose doors dead horses had remained, festering in the heat, for two or three days. One irascible man sent us furious denunciations, until we were at last able to send a big dray to drag away the horse that lay dead before his shop-door. The huge dray already contained eleven other dead horses, and when it reached this particular door it broke down, and it was hours before it could be moved. The unfortunate man who had thus been cursed with a granted wish closed his doors in despair and wrote us a final pathetic letter in which he requested us to remove either the horses or his shop, he didn't care which.
Hopefully, this account will encourage us to be kinder, and do a little less grumbling.
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