Keeping a Record of Daily Annoyances
If you would keep a book, and every day put down the things that pester you, and see what becomes of them, it would be a benefit to you. You allow a thing to pester you, just as you allow a fly to settle on you and plague you; and you lose your temper (or rather get it; for when men are surcharged with temper they are said to have lost it); and you justify yourselves for being thrown off your balance by causes which you do not trace out. But if you would see what it was that threw you off your balance before breakfast, and put it down in a little book, and follow it up, and follow it out, and ascertain what becomes of it, you would see what a fool you were in the matter.