CAUSES OF WORRY
Worry is as multiform and as diverse as are the people who worry.
Indeed worriers are the most ingenious persons in the world. When
every possible source of worry seems to be removed, they proceed
immediately to invent some new cause which an ordinary healthful mind
could never have conceived.
The causes of worry are innumerable. They represent the sum total
of the errors, faults, missteps, unholy aims, ambitions, foibles,
weaknesses and crimes of men. Every error, mistake, weakness, crime,
etc., is a source of worry--a cause of worry. Worry is connected only
with the weak, the human, the evil side of human nature. It has no
place whatever in association with goodness, purity, holiness, faith,
courage and trust in God. When good men and women worry, in so far as
they worry they are not good. Their worry is a sign of weakness, of
lack of trust in God, of unbelief, of unfaithfulness. The man who
knows God and his relationship to man; who knows his own spiritual
nature and his relationship to God _never worries_. There is no
possible place in such a man's life for worry.
Hence it will be seen that I believe worry to be evil, and nothing but
evil, and, therefore, without one reclaiming or redeeming feature, for
it can be productive of nothing but evil.
If you really desire to know the sources of your worry _study each
worry as it comes up_. Analyse it, dissect it, weigh it, examine it
from every standpoint, judge it by the one test that everything in
life must, and ought to submit to, viz.: its usefulness. What use
is it to you? How necessary to your existence? How helpful is it in
solving the problems that confront you; how far does it aid you in
their solution, wherein does it remove the obstacles before your
pathway. Find out how much it strengthens, invigorates, inspires you.
Ask yourself how much it encourages, enheartens, emboldens you. Put
down on paper every slightest item of good, or help, or inspiration
it is to you, and on the other hand, the harm, the discouragement, the
evil, the fears it brings to you, and then strike a balance.
I can tell you beforehand that after ten years' study--if so long were
necessary--you will fail to find one good thing in favor of worry,
and that every item you will enumerate will be against it. Hence, why
worry? Quit it!
Worry, like all evils, feeds on itself, and grows greater by its own
exercise. Did it decline when exercised, diminish when allowed a free
course, one might let it alone, even encourage it, in order that it
might the sooner be dead. But, unfortunately, it works the other
way. The more one worries the more he continues to worry. The more
he yields to it the greater becomes its power. It is a species of
hypnotism: once allow it to control, each new exercise diminishes the
victim's power of resistance.
Never was monster more cruel, more relentless, more certain to hang on
to the bitter end than worry. He shows no mercy, has not the slightest
spark of relenting or yielding. And his power is all the greater
because it is so subtle. He wants you to be "careful"--taking good
care, however, not to let you know that he means to make you _full of
care_. He pleads "love" as the cause for his existence. He would have
you love your child, hence "worry" about him. He thus trades on your
affection to blind you to your child's best interests by "worrying"
about him. For when worry besets you, is harassing you on every hand,
how can you possibly devote your wisdom, your highest intelligence to
safeguarding the welfare of the one you love.
Never was a slave in the South, though in the hands of a Legree,
more to be pitied than the slave of worry. He dogs every footstep, is
vigilant every moment. He never sleeps, never tires, never relaxes,
never releases his hold so long as it is possible for him to retain
it. When you seek to awaken people to the terror, the danger, the
hourly harm their slavery to worry is bringing to them, they are so
completely in worry's power that they weakly respond: "But I can't
help it." And they verily believe they can't; that their bondage is
a natural thing; a state "ordained from the foundation of the world,"
altogether ignoring the frightful reflection such a belief is upon the
goodness of God and his fatherly care for his children. Natural! It is
the most unnatural thing in existence. Do the birds worry? The beasts
of the field? The clouds? The winds? The sun, moon, stars, and comets?
The trees? The flowers? The rain-drops? How Bryant rebukes the worrier
in his wonderful poem "_To a Water Fowl_," and Celia Thaxter in her
"_Sandpiper_." The former sings of the fowl winging its solitary way
where "rocking billows rise and sink on the chafed ocean-side," yet
though "lone wandering" it is not lost. And from its protection he
deduces the lesson:
He who, from zone to zone,
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone
Will lead my steps aright.
And so Celia Thaxter sang of the sandpiper:
He has no thought of any wrong,
He scans me with a fearless eye.
And her faith expressed itself in a later verse:
I do not fear for thee, though wroth
The tempest rushes through the sky:
For are we not God's children both,
Thou, little sandpiper, and I?
There is no worry in Nature. It is man alone that worries. Nature goes
on her appointed way each day unperturbed, unvexed, care-free, doing
her allotted tasks and resting absolutely in the almighty sustaining
power behind her. Should man do any less? Should man--the reasoning
creature, with intelligence to see, weigh, judge, appreciate,--alone
be uncertain of the fatherly goodness of God; alone be unable to
discern the wisdom and love behind all things? Worry, therefore, is an
evidence that we do not trust the all-fatherliness of God.
It is also the direct product of vanity, pride and self-conceit. If
these three qualities of evil in the human heart could be removed a
vast aggregate amount of worry would die instantly. No one can study
his fellow creatures and not soon learn that an immense amount of
worry is caused by these three evils.
We are worried lest our claims to attention are not fully recognized,
less our worth be not observed, our proper station accorded to us. How
we press our paltry little claims upon others, how we glorify our own
insignificant deeds; how large loom up our small and puny acts. The
whole universe centers in us; our ego is a most important thing;
our work of the highest value and significance; our worth most
inestimable.
The fact of the matter is most men and women are inestimable, their
deeds of value, their lives of importance. Our particular circle needs
us, as we need those who compose it, we are all important, but few,
indeed, are there, whose power, influence and importance reach far.
Most of the men and women of the world are ordinary. A man may be
a king in Wall street, and yet influence but few outside of his own
immediate sphere. Most probably he is unknown to the great mass of
mankind. Adventitious circumstances bring some men and women more
prominently before the world than others, but even such fame as this
is transient, evanescent, and of little importance. The devoted love
of our own small circle; the reliable friendship of the few; the
blind adoration of the pet dog are worth more than all the "fame," the
"eclat," the "renown" of the multitude. And where we have such love,
friendship, and blind adoration, let us rest content therein, and
smile at the floods of temporary and evanescent emotion which sweep
over the mob, but do not have us for their object. I have just read
a letter which perfectly illustrates how our vanity, our pride, and
personal importance bring much worry to us. The writer--practically
a stranger coming from a far-away state--evidently expected to be
received with a cordial welcome and open arms, by one who scarcely
knew him, given an important place in a lengthy program where men
of national reputation were to speak, and generally be treated with
deference and respect. Unfortunately his name was not placed _in
full_ on the program,--curtly initialed he called it--and owing to
its length "the chairman caused me to spoil my remarks by asking me to
shorten them," and a hotel clerk "outrageously insulted" him when he
asked for information. Then, to make ill matters worse--piling Ossa.
upon Pelion--he was asked to speak at a certain club, with others.
One of the newspapers, in reporting the event, commented upon what the
others said and did but ignore him. This he thought might have been
merely an oversight, but when, the next day, he saw another report
wherein he was not mentioned he was certain "it was a deliberate
intention to ignore" him. He then asks that the person to whom he
writes "try to find out who is responsible for this affront," and tell
him--in order that he may worry some more, I suppose, over trying to
"get back at him."
Poor, poor fellow, how he is to be pitied for being so "sensitive," so
sure that people regard him enough to want to affront him.
Here is a perfect illustration of the worries caused by vanity;
five complaints in one letter, of indignities, or affronts, that an
ordinary, robust red-blooded man would have passed by without notice.
If I were to worry over the times I have been ignored and neglected
I should worry every day. I am fairly well known to many hundreds of
thousands of people who read my books, my magazine articles, and hear
my lectures, yet I often go to cities and there are no brass bands,
no committee, flowers, or banquet to welcome me. No! indeed, the
indignity is thrust upon me of having to walk to the hotel, carry
my own grip, and register, the same as any other ordinary, common,
everyday man! Why should not my blood boil when I think of it? Then,
too, when I recall how often my addresses are ignored in the local
press, ought not I to be aroused to fierce ire? When a hotel clerk
fails to recognize my national importance and gives me a flippant
answer when I ask for information should I not deem it time that the
Secretary of State interfere and write a State paper upon the matter?
Oh vanity, conceit, pride, how many sleepless hours of worry and fret
you bring to your victims, and the pitiable, the lamentable thing
about it all is that they congratulate themselves upon being filled
with "laudable pride," "recognizing their own importance," and
knowing that "honorable ambition" is beneficial. Nothing that causes
unnecessary heart-aches and worry is worth while, and of all the
prolific causes of these woes commend me to the vanity, the conceit,
the pride of small minds and petty natures.
False pride leads its victim to want to make a false impression. He
puts on a false appearance. He wishes to appear wiser, better, in
easier circumstances, richer than he is. He wears a false front. He is
unnatural. He dare not--having decided to make the appearance, and win
the impression of falseness--be natural. Hence he is self-conscious
all the time lest he make a slip, contradict himself, lose the result
he is seeking to attain. He is to be compared to an actor whose part
requires him to wear a wig, a false moustache, a false chin. In the
hurry of preparation these shams are not adjusted properly and the
actor rushes on the stage fearful every moment lest his wig is
awry, his moustache fall off, or the chin slip aside and make him
ridiculous. He dare not stop to make sure, to "fix" them if they are
wrong, as that would reveal their falsity immediately. He can only
play on, sweating blood the while.
In the case of the actor one can laugh at the temporary fear and
worry, but what a truly pitiable object is the man, the woman, whose
whole life is one dread worry lest his, her, false appearance be
discovered. And while pride and vanity are not the only sources of
these attempts to make false impressions upon others they are a most
prolific source. In another chapter I have treated more fully of this
phase of the subject.
Wastefulness, extravagance, is a prolific source of worry. Spend
to-day, starve to-morrow. Throw your money to the birds to-day;
to-morrow the crow, jay, and vulture will laugh and mock at you. Feast
to-day; next week you may starve. Riches take to themselves wings
and fly away. No one is absolutely safe, and while many thousands
go through life indifferent about their expenditures, wasteful and
extravagant and do not seem to be brought to time therefor, it must
not be forgotten that tens of thousands start out to do the same thing
and fail. What is the result? Worry over the folly of the attempt;
worry as to where the necessary things for the future are coming from!
While I would not have the well-to-do feel that they must be niggardly
I would earnestly warn them against extravagance, against the
acquiring of expensive habits of wastefulness that later on may be
chains of a cruel bondage. Why forge fetters upon oneself? Far better
be free now and thus cultivate freedom for whatever future may come.
For as sure as sure can be wilful waste and reckless extravagance now
will sometime or other produce worry.
One great, deep, awful source of worry is _our failure to accept the
inevitable_. Something happens,--we wilfully shut our eyes to the fact
that this something has changed _forever_ the current of our lives,
and if the new current _seems_ evil, if it brings discomfort,
separation, change of circumstance, etc., we worry, and worry, and
continue to worry. This is lamentably foolish, utterly absurd and
altogether reprehensible. Let us resolutely face the facts, accept
them, and then reshape our lives, bravely and valiantly, to suit the
new conditions.
For instance a friend of mine spent twenty years in the employ of a
great corporation. As a reward of faithful service he was finally put
in a responsible position as the head of a department. A few months
ago he was sent East on a special mission connected with his work.
Just before his return the corporation elected a new president,
who "shook up" the whole concern, changed around several officials,
dismissed others, and in the case of my friend, supplanted him by a
new man imported from the East, offering him a subordinate position,
but, at the same salary he had before been receiving.
How should this man have treated this settled fixed fact in his
life? He had two great broad pathways open to him. In one he would
deliberately recognize and accept the changed condition, acquiese in
it and live accordingly. It is not pleasant to be supplanted, but if
another man is appointed to do the work you have been doing, and your
superiors think he can do it better than you have been doing it, then
manfully face the facts and accord him the most sincere and hearty
support. It may be hard, but our training and discipline,--which means
our improvement and advancement--come, not from doing the easy and
pleasant things, but from striving, cheerfully and pleasantly to do
the arduous and disagreeable ones. The other way open for my friend
was to resent the change, accept it with anger, let his vanity be
wounded, and begin to worry over it. What would have been the probable
result? The moment he began to worry his efficiency would have
decreased, and he would thus have prepared himself for another "blow"
from his employers, another change less to his advantage, and with a
possible reduction in salary. His employers, too, would have pointed
to his decreased efficiency--the only thing they consider--as
justification for their act.
I would not say that if a man, in such a case as I have described,
deems that he has been treated unjustly, should not protest, but, when
he has protested, and a decision has been rendered against him let him
accept the judgment with serenity, refuse to worry over it, and go to
work with loyalty and faithfulness, or else seek new employment.
Even, on the other hand, were he to have been discharged, there could
have come no good from yielding to worry. _Accept the inevitable_, do
not argue or fret about it, put worry aside, go to work to find a new
position, and make what seemed to be an evil the stepping-stone to
something better.
Mrs. Jessie Benton Fremont, the wife of the gallant pathfinder,
General Fremont, was afflicted with deafness in the later years of her
life. She,--the petted and flattered, the caressed and spoiled child
of fortune, the honored and respected woman of power and superior
ability--deaf, and unable to participate in the conversation going
on around her. Many a woman under these conditions, would have become
irritable, irascible, and a reviler of Fate. To any woman it would
have been a great deprivation, but to one mentally endowed as Mrs.
Fremont, it was especially severe. Yet did she "worry" about it? No!
bravely, cheerfully, boldly, she _accepted the inevitable_, and
in effect defied the deafness that had come to her to destroy her
happiness, embitter her life, take away the serenity of her mind and
the equipoise of her soul. If there had to be a battle to gain this
high plane of acceptance, she fought it out in secret, for her friends
and the world never heard a word of a murmur from her. I had the joy
of a talk with her about it, for it was a joy to have her make light
of her affliction, in the great number of good things wherein God
had blessed her. Laughingly she said: "Even in deafness I find many
compensations. One is never bored by conversation that is neither
intelligent, instructive or interesting. I can go to sleep under the
most persistent flood of boredom, and like the proverbial water on a
duck's back it never bothers me. Again, I never hear the unpleasant
things said about either my friends or my enemies, and what a blessing
that is. I am also spared hearing about many of the evils, the
disagreeable, the unpleasant and horrible things of life that I cannot
change, help, or alleviate, and I am thankful for my ignorance.
Then, again, when people say things that I can and do hear--in my
trumpet--that I don't think anyone should ever say, I can rebuke them
by making them think that I heard them say the very opposite of what
they did say, and I smile upon them 'and am a villain still.'"
Charles F. Lummis, the well-known litterateur and organizer of the
South-West Museum, of Los Angeles, after using his eyes and brain more
liberally than most men do in a lifetime thrice, or four times as long
as his, was unfortunately struck blind. Did he "worry" over it, and
fret himself into a worse condition? No! not for a moment. Cheerfully
he accepted the inevitable, got someone to read and write for him, to
guide him through the streets, and went ahead with his work just as
if nothing had happened, looking forward to the time when his eyesight
would be restored to him and hopefully and intelligently worked to
that end. In a year or so he and his friends were made happy by that
coming to pass, but even had it not been so, I am assured Dr. Lummis
would have faced the inevitable without a whimper, a cry, or a word of
worry or complaint.
Those who yield to worry over small physical ills should read his
inspiring _My Friend Will_,[A] a personal record of his sucessful
struggle against two severe and prostrating attacks of paralysis. One
perusal will show them the folly and futility of worry; a second will
shame them because they have so little self-control as to spend their
time, strength, and energy in worry; and a third perusal will lead
them to drive every fragment of worry out of the hidden recesses
of their minds and set them upon a better way--a way of serenity,
equipoise, and healthful, strenuous, yet joyous and radiant living.
[Footnote A:_My Friend Will_, by C.F. Lummis, A.C. McClurg Co.,
Chicago.]
Recently I had a conversation with the former superintendent of a poor
farm, which bears upon this subject in a practical way. In relating
some of his experiences he told of a "rough-neck"--a term implying
an ignorant man of rude, turbulent, quarrelsome disposition--who
had threatened to kill the foreman of the farm. Owing to their
irreconcilable differences the rough inmate decided to leave and so
informed the superintendent, thus practically dismissing himself from
the institution. A year later he returned and asked to be re-admitted.
After a survey of the whole situation the superintendent decided that
it was not wise to re-admit him, and that he would better secure
a situation for him outside. He offered to do so and the man left
apparently satisfied. Three days later he reappeared, entered the
office with a loaded and cocked revolver held behind his back, and
abruptly announced: "I've come to blow out your brains." Before he
could shoot the superintendent was upon him and a fierce struggle
ensued for the possession of the weapon. The superintendent at last
took it away, secured help and handcuffed the would-be murderer.
Realizing that his act was the result of at least partial insanity,
the was-to-be victim did not press the charge of murderous assault but
allowed--indeed urged that he be sent to the insane asylum where he
now is.
Now this is the point I wish to make. It is perfectly within the
bounds of possibility that this man will some day be regarded as
safely sane. Yet it is well known by the awful experiences of many
such cases that it is both possible and probable that during the
months or years of his incarceration he will continue to harbor, even
to feed and foster the bitter feeling, the hatred, perhaps, that
led him to attempt the murder of the superintendent, and that on his
release he will again attempt to carry out his nefarious and awful
design.
What, then, should be the mental attitude of the superintendent and
his family? Ought they not to be worried? I got the answer for my
readers from this man, and it is so perfectly in accord with my own
principles that I find great pleasure in recording it. Said he:
Don't think for one moment that I minimize the possible
danger. The asylum physician who was familiar with the whole
circumstances warned me not to rest in fancied security. I
have notified the proper officials that the man who attempted
to murder me is not to be released either as cured or on
parole without giving me sufficient notice. I do not wish that
he should be kept in the asylum a single day longer than is
fully necessary, but before I allow him to be released I must
be thoroughly satisfied that he has no murderous designs on
me, and that he is truly and satisfactorily repentant for
the attack he made when, ostensibly, he was mentally
irresponsible. I shall require that he be put on record
as fully understanding and appreciating his own personal
responsibility for my safety--so that should he still hold any
wrongful designs, and afterwards succeed in carrying them
out, he or his attorneys will be debarred from again pleading
insanity or mental incompetency.
Hence while I fully realize the possibility of danger I do not
have a moment's worry about it. I have done and shall do all I
can, satisfactorily, to protect myself, without any feeling of
harshness or desire to injure the poor fellow, and there I let
the matter rest to take care of itself.
This is practical wisdom. This is sane philosophy. Not ignoring the
danger, pooh-pooing it, scoffing at it and refusing to recognize
it, but calmly, sanely, with a kindly heart looking at possible
contingencies, preparing for them, and then serenely trusting to the
spiritual forces of life to control events to a wise and satisfactory
issue.
Can you suggest anything better? Is not such a course immeasurably
better than to allow himself to worry, and fret and fear all the time?
Practical precaution, _taken without enmity_--note these italicized
words--trustful serenity, faithful performance of present duty
unhampered by fears and worries--this is the rational, normal,
philosophic, sane course to follow.
Another great source of worry is _our failure to distinguish
essentials from non-essentials_. What are the essentials for life? For
a man, honesty, truth, earnestness, strength, health, ability to work,
and work to do. He may or may not be handsome; he may or may not have
wealth, position, fame, education; but to be a man among men, these
other things he must have. For a woman,--health, love, work, and such
virtues as both men and women need. She might enjoy friends, but they
are not essential as health or work; she would be a strange woman
if she did not prize beauty, but devoted love is worth far more than
beauty or all the conquests it brings. What is the essential for
a chair?--its capacity to be used to sit upon with comfort. A
house?--that it is adapted to the making of a home. You don't buy a
printing-press to curl your hair with but to print, and in accordance
with its printing power is it judged. A boat's usefulness is
determined by its worthiness in the water, to carry safely, rapidly,
largely as is demanded of it.
This is the judgement sanity demands of everything. What is
essential--What not? Is it essential to be a society leader, to
belong to every club, to hold office, to give as many dinners as one's
neighbors, to have a bigger house, furniture with brighter polish,
bigger carvings and more ugly designs than anyone else in town,
to have our names in the papers oftener than others, to have more
servants, a newer style automobile, put on more show, pomp, ceremony
and circumstance than our friends?
By no means! Oh for men and women who have the discerning power--the
sight for the essential things, the determination to have them and
let non-essentials go. They are the wise ones, the happy ones, the
free-from-worry ones.
Later I shall refer extensively to Mrs. Canfield's book _The Squirrel
Cage_. She has many wise utterances on this phase of the worry
question. For instance, in referring to the mad race for wealth and
position that keeps a man away from home so many hours of the day
that his wife and child scarce know him she introduces the following
dialogue:
One of them whose house isn't far from mine, told me that he
hadn't seen his children, except asleep, for three weeks.
'But something ought to be done about it!' The girl's
deep-lying instinct for instant reparation rose up hotly.
'Are they so much worse off than most American business men?'
queried Rankin. 'Do any of them feel they can take the time
to see much more than the outside of their children; and isn't
seeing them asleep about as--'
Lydia cut him short quickly. 'You're always blaming them for
that,' she cried. 'You ought to pity them. They can't help it.
It's better for the children to have bread and butter, isn't
it--'
Rankin shook his head. 'I can't be fooled with that sort of
talk--I've lived with too many kinds of people. At least half
the time it is not a question of bread and butter. It's a
question of giving the children bread and butter and sugar
rather than bread and butter and father. Of course, I'm a
fanatic on the subject. I'd rather leave off even the butter
than the father--let alone the sugar.'
Later on Lydia herself lost her father and after his death
her own wail was: 'I never lived with my father. He was always
away in the morning before I was up. I was away, or busy, in
the evening when he was there. On Sundays he never went to
church as mother and I did--I suppose now because he had some
other religion of his own. But if he had I never knew what it
was--or anything else that was in his mind or heart. It never
occurred to me that I could. He tried to love me--I remember
so many times now--and _that_ makes me cry!--how he tried
to love me! He was so glad to see me when I got home from
Europe--but he never knew anything that happened to me. I
told you once before that when I had pneumonia and nearly died
mother kept it from him because he was on a big case. It was
all like that--always. He never knew.'
Dr. Melton broke in, his voice uncertain, his face horrified:
'Lydia, I cannot let you go on! you are unfair--you shock me.
You are morbid! I knew your father intimately. He loved you
beyond expression. He would have done anything for you. But
his profession is an exacting one. Put yourself in his place a
little. It is all or nothing in the law--as in business.'
But Lydia replied: 'When you bring children Into the world,
you expect to have them cost you some money, don't you? You
know you mustn't let them die of starvation. Why oughtn't you
to expect to have them cost you thought, and some sharing of
your life with them, and some time--real time, not just scraps
that you can't use for business?'
She made the same appeal once to her husband in regard to
their own lives. She wanted to see and know more of him, his
business, his inner life, and this was her cry: 'Paul, I'm
sure there's something the matter with the way we live--I
don't like it! I don't see that it helps us a bit--or anyone
else--you're just killing yourself to make money that goes
to get things we don't need nearly as much as we need more
of each other! We're not getting a bit nearer to each
other--actually further away, for we're both getting different
from what we were without the other's knowing how! And we're
not getting nicer--and what's the use of living if we don't do
that? We're just getting more and more set on scrambling ahead
of other people. And we're not even having a good time out
of it! And here is Ariadne--and another one coming--and we've
nothing to give them but just this--this--this--
Paul laughed a little impatiently, irritated and uneasy, as
he always was at any attempt to examine too closely the
foundations of existing ideas. 'Why, Lydia, what's the matter
with you? You sound as though you'd been reading some fool
socialist literature or something.'
You know I don't read anything, Paul. I never hear about
anything but novels. I never have time for anything else, and
very likely I couldn't understand it if I read it, not having
any education. That's one thing I want you to help me with.
All I want is a chance for us to live together a little more,
to have a few more thoughts in common, and oh! to be trying to
be making something better out of ourselves for our children's
sake. I can't see that we're learning to be anything but--you,
to be an efficient machine for making money, I to think of how
to entertain as though we had more money than we really have.
I don't seem really to know you or live with you any more
than if we were two guests stopping at the same hotel. If
socialists are trying to fix things better, why shouldn't we
have time--both of us--to read their books; and you could help
me know what they mean?'
Paul laughed again, a scornful, hateful laugh, which brought
the color up to Lydia's pale face like a blow. 'I gather,
then, Lydia, that what you're asking me to do is to neglect my
business in order to read socialistic literature with you?'
His wife's rare resentment rose. She spoke with dignity: 'I
begged you to be serious, Paul, and to try to understand what
I mean, although I'm so fumbling, and say it so badly. As for
its being impossible to change things, I've heard you say a
great many times that there are no conditions that can't be
changed if people would really try--'
'Good heavens! I said that of _business_ conditions!' shouted
Paul, outraged at being so misquoted.
'Well, if it's true of them--No; I feel that things are the
way they are because we don't really care enough to have them
some other way. If you really cared as much about sharing a
part of your life with me--really sharing--as you do about
getting the Washburn contract--'
Her indignant and angry tone, so entirely unusual, moved Paul,
more than her words, to shocked protest. He looked deeply
wounded, and his accent was that of a man righteously
aggrieved. 'Lydia, I lay most of this absurd outbreak to your
nervous condition, and so I can't blame you for it. But I
can't help pointing out to you that it is entirely uncalled
for. There are few women who have a husband as absolutely
devoted as yours. You grumble about my not sharing my life
with you--why, I _give_ it to you entire!' His astonished
bitterness grew as he voiced it. 'What am I working so hard
for if not to provide for you and our child--our children!
Good Heavens! What more _can_ I do for you than to keep my
nose on the grindstone every minute. There are limits to even
a husband's time and endurance and capacity for work.'
Hence it will be seen that I would have one Quit Worrying about the
non-essentials of life, and this is best done by giving full heed to
the essentials and letting the others go. Naturally, if one wilfully
and purposefully determines to follow non-essentials, he may as well
recognize the fact soon as late that he has deliberately chosen
a course that cannot fail to produce its own many and irritating
worries.
Another serious cause of worry is bashfulness. One who is bashful
finds in his intercourse with his fellows many worries. His hands and
feet are too large, he blushes at a word, he doesn't know what to say
or how, he is confused if attention is directed his way, his thoughts
fly to the ends of the earth the moment he is addressed, and if he is
expected to say anything, his worries increase so that his pain and
distress are manifest to all. To such an one I would say: Assert your
manhood, your womanhood. Brace up. Face the music. Remember these
facts. You are dealing with men and women, youths and maidens, of the
same flesh and blood, mentality as yourself. You average up with
the rest of them. Why should you be afraid? Call upon your reasoning
power. Assert the dignity of your own existence. You are here by the
will of God as much as they. There is a purpose in your creation as
much as in theirs. You have a right to be seen and heard as well as
have they. Your life may be charged with importance to mankind far
more than theirs. Anyhow for what it is, large or small, you are going
to use it to the full, and you do not propose to be laughed out of it,
sneered out of it, either by the endeavors of others or by your own
fears of others. Then, when you have once fully reasoned the thing
out, do not hesitate to plunge into the fullest possible association
with your fellows. Brave them, defy them (in your own heart),
resolutely face them, and my word and assurance for it, they will lose
their terror, and you will lose your bashfulness with a speed that
will astonish you.
Closely allied to bashfulness as a cause of many worries is hyper-
or super-sensitiveness. And yet it is an entirely different mental
attitude. Hyper-sensitiveness may cause bashfulness, but there are
many thousands of hyper-sensitives who have not a spark of bashfulness
in their condition. They are full of vanity or self-conceit. Elsewhere
I have referred to one of these. Or they are hyper-sensitive in regard
to their health. They mustn't do this, or that, or the other, they
must be careful not to sit near a window, allow a door to be open,
or go into an unwarmed room. Their feet must never be wet, or their
clothing, and as for sleeping in a cold room, or getting up before the
fire is lighted, they could not live through such awful hardships.
I have no desire to excoriate or make fun of those who really suffer
from chronic invalidism, yet I am fully assured that much of the
hyper-sensitiveness of the neurasthenic and hypochondriac could be
removed by a little rude, rough and tumble contact with life. It
would do most of these people no harm to follow the advice given
by Abernethy, the great English physician, to a pampered, overfed
hyper-sensitive: Live on six pence a day _and earn it_. I have found
few hyper-sensitives among the poor. Poverty is a fine cure for most
cases, though there are those who cling to their pride of birth of
education, or God knows what of insane belief in their superiority
over ordinary mortals, and make that the occasion, or cause, of the
innumerable and fretting worries of hyper-sensitiveness.
Another serious cause of worry, in this busy, bustling, rapid age,
is the need we feel for hurry. We are caught in the mad rush and
its influence leads us to feel that we, too, must rush. There is no
earthly reason for our hurry, and yet we cannot seem to help it.
Hurry means worry. Rush spells fret. Haste makes waste. You live in
the country and are a commuter. You must be in the city on the stroke
of nine. To do this, you must catch the 8:07. You have your breakfast
to get and it takes six minutes to walk to the station. No one can do
it comfortably in less. Yet every morning, ever since you took this
country cottage, you have had to rush through your breakfast, and rush
to the depot in order to catch the train. Thus starting the day on the
rush, you have continued "on the stretch" all day, and get back home
at night tired out, fretted and worried "almost to death." Even when
you sit down to breakfast, you begin to worry if wifie doesn't have
everything ready. You know you'll be late. You feel it, and if the
toast and coffee are not on the table the moment you sit down, your
querelous complaints strike the morning air.
Now what's the use?
Why don't you get up ten, fifteen, or twenty minutes earlier, and thus
give yourself time to eat comfortably, and thus get over the worry of
your rush? Set the alarm clock for 7:00, or 6:45, or even 6:30. Far
better get up half an hour too early, than worry yourself, your wife,
and the whole household by your insane hurry. Your worry is wholly
unnecessary and shows a fearful lack of simple intelligence.
Annie Laurie, who writes many sage counsels in the _San Francisco
Examiner_, had an excellent article on this subject in the issue of
December 31, 1915. She wrote:
Here is something that I saw out my window--it has given me the big
thought for my biggest New Year's resolution. The man at the corner
house ran down the steps in a terrible hurry. He saw the car coming
up the hill and whistled to it from the porch, but the man who was
running the car did not hear the whistle. Anyway, he didn't stop the
car, and the man on the steps looked as if he'd like to catch the
conductor of that car and do something distinctly unfriendly to
him, and do it right then and there. He jammed his hat down over his
forehead and started walking very fast.
"What's your hurry?" said the man he was passing on the corner.
"What's your hurry, Joe?" and the man on the corner held out his hand.
"Well, I'll be--," said Joe, and he held out his hand, too, "if it
isn't--"
And it was, and they both laughed and shook hands and clapped each
other on the back and shook hands again.
"What's your hurry?" said the man on the corner again.
"I dun-no," said the man who was so cross because he'd lost his car.
"Nothing much, I guess," and he laughed and the other man laughed and
they shook hands again. And the last I saw of them they had started
down the street right In the opposite direction from which the man in
the hurry had started to go, and they weren't in a hurry at all.
Do you know what I wished right then and there? I wished that every
time I get into the senseless habit of rushing everywhere and tearing
through everything as if it was my last day on earth and there
wasn't a minute left to lose, somebody would stop me on the corner of
whatever street of circumstance I may be starting to cross and say to
me in friendly fashion:
"What's the hurry?"
What is the hurry, after all? Where are we all going? What for?
What difference does it make whether I read my paper at 8 o'clock in
the morning or at half-past 9?
Will the world stop swinging in its orbit if I don't meet just so
many people a day, write so many letters, hear so many lectures, skim
through so many books? Of course if I'm earning my living I must work
for it and work not only honestly but hard. But it seems to me that
most of the terrific hurrying we do hasn't much to do with really
essential work after all. It's a kind of habit we get into, a sort of
madness, like the thing that overtakes the crowd at a ferry landing or
the entrance to a train. I've seen men, and women, too, fairly fight
to get onto a particular car when the next car would have done just
exactly as well.
Where are they going in such a hurry? To save a life? To mend a broken
heart? To help to heal a wounded spirit? Or are they just rushing
because the rest do it?
What do they get out of life--these people who are always in a rush?
Look! The laurel tree in my California garden is full of bursting
buds! The rains are beginning and the trees will soon be flecked with
a silver veil of blossoms. I hadn't noticed it before. I've been too
busy.
What's your hurry? Come, friend of my heart, I'll say that to you
to-day and say it in deep and friendly earnest.
What's your hurry? Come, let's go for a walk together and see
if we can find out. Let us keep finding out through all the
new year.
There are many other causes of worry, some of them so insidious, so
powerful, as to call for treatment in special chapters.