I am an undisciplined child and I want only candy for my lunch. It is
not good for me. Milk is what I should have. I don't want it. You may
deprive me of the candy and force me to drink the milk, and I can do
nothing but submit. But I rebel within, and I am only more convinced
that I "hate" it and want candy, and that you are my natural enemy
because you force the one upon me and deprive me of the other. If I were
insane and so, of course, could not be reasoned with, this might be
inevitable. But it would be unfortunate. In that case, if possible, do
not let me see the candy; let only the food it is best for me to have be
put before me, and perhaps eventually I shall come to want the more
wholesome thing--for it is better than the hunger.
But as it happens I am a perfectly normal person, only I am sick. I am
tired of bed, and want to sit up--and it does seem that I should have my
desire. The nurse, wise in her knowledge of sick "grown-ups," who are,
after all, very like children, will find a way to divert my mind from
the immediate "I want" to something which I also can be led to want.
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