SELF-PITY
"The will dotes that is attributive
To what infectiously itself affects."
_Troilus and Cressida_.
The worst brake on the will to be well is undoubtedly the habit that
some people have of pitying themselves and feeling that they are
eminently deserving of the pity of others because of the trials, real
or supposed, which they have to undergo. Instead of realizing how much
better off they are than the great majority of people--for most of the
typical self-pitiers are not real subjects for pity--they keep looking
at those whom they fondly suppose to be happier than themselves and
then proceed to get into a mood of commiseration with themselves
because of their ill health--real or imaginary--or uncomfortable
surroundings. Just as soon as men or women assume this state of mind,
it becomes extremely difficult for them to stand any real {70} trials
that appear, and above all, it becomes even more difficult for them to
react properly against the affections of one kind or another that are
almost sure to come. Self-pity is ever a serious hamperer of resistive
vitality.
A great many things in modern life have distinctly encouraged this
practice of self-pity and conscious commiseration of one's state until
it has become almost a commonplace of modern life for those who feel
that they are suffering, especially if they belong to what may be
called the sophisticated classes. We have become extremely sensitive
as a consequence about contact with suffering. Editors of magazines
and readers for publishing houses often refuse in our time to accept
stories that have unhappy endings, because people do not care to read
them, it is said. The story may have some suffering in it and even
severe hardships, especially if these can be used for purposes of
dramatic climax, but by the end of the story everything must have
turned out "just lovely", and it must be understood that suffering is
only a passing matter and merely a somewhat unpleasant prelude to
inevitable happiness.
Almost needless to say, this is not the way of life as it must be
lived in what many {71} generations of men have agreed in calling
"this vale of tears." For a great many people have to suffer severely
and without any prospect of relief--none of us quite escape the
necessity of suffering--and as some one has said, all human life,
inasmuch as there is death in it, must be considered a tragedy. The
old Greeks did not hesitate, in spite of their deep appreciation of
the beauty of nature and cordial enthusiasm for the joy of living,
even to emphasize the tragedy in life. They were perhaps inclined to
think that the sense of contrast produced by tragedy heightened the
actual enjoyment of life and that indeed all pleasure was founded
rather on contrast than positive enjoyment. One may not be ready to
agree with the saying that the only thing that makes life worth while
is contrast, but certainly suffering as a background enhances
happiness as nothing else can.
Aristotle declared that tragedy purges life, that is, that only
through the lens of death and misfortune could one see life free from
the dross of the sordid and merely material to which it was attached.
His meaning was that tragedy lifted man above the selfishness of mere
individualism, and by showing him the misfortunes of others prepared
him to struggle {72} for himself when misfortune might come, as it
almost inevitably would; and at the same time lifted him above the
trifles of daily life into a higher, broader sphere of living, where
he better realized himself and his powers.
For man is distinctly prone to forget about death and suffering, and
when he does, to become eminently selfish and forgetful of the rights
of others and his duties towards them. The French have a saying,
consisting of but four words and an intervening shrug of the
shoulders, that is extremely illuminating. They quote as the
expression of the usual thought of men when brought face to face with
the fact that people are dying all around them, "_On meurt--les
autres!_" "People die--Oh, yes (with an expressive shrug of the
shoulders), other people!" We refuse to recognize the fact that we too
must go until that is actually forced upon us by advancing years or by
some incurable disease. As for suffering, a great many people have
come almost to resent that they should be asked to suffer, and
character dissolves in self-pity as a result.
Instead of the constant, continuous reading of what may be called
Sybaritic literature--for it is said that the Sybarite finds it
impossible to sleep if there is a crushed rose leaf next {73} his
skin--instead of being absorbed in the literature which emphasizes the
pleasures of life and pushes its pains into the background, young
people, and especially those of the better-to-do classes, should be
taught from their early years to read the lives of those who have
endured successfully hardships of various kinds and have succeeded in
getting satisfaction out of their accomplishment in life, despite all
the suffering that was involved. These are human beings like
ourselves, and what mortal has done, other mortals can do.
There was a school of American psychologists before the war who had
come to recognize the value of that old-fashioned means of
self-discipline of mind, the reading of the lives of the saints. For
those to whom that old-fashioned practice may seem too reactionary,
there are the lives and adventures of our African and Asiatic
travelers and our polar explorers as a resource.
War books have been a godsend for our generation in this regard. They
have led people to contemplate the hardest kind of suffering--and very
often in connection with those who are nearest and dearest to them--
and thus made them understand something of the possibilities of human
nature to withstand {74} trials and sufferings. As a result they have
been trained not to make too much of their own trivial trials, as they
soon learned to recognize them in the face of the awful hardships that
this war involved. What Belgium endured was bad enough, while the
experiences of Poland, Servia, Armenia were an ascending scale of
horrors, but also of humanity's power to stand suffering.
Life in the larger families of the olden times afforded more
opportunities for the proper teaching of the place of suffering than
in the smaller families of the modern time. Older children, as they
grew up, had before them the example of mother's trials and hardships
in bearing and rearing children, and so came to understand better the
place of hard things in life. In a large family it was very rare when
one or more of the members did not die, and thus growing youth was
brought in contact with the greatest mystery in life, that of death.
Very frequently at least one of the household and sometimes more, had
to go through a period of severe suffering with which the others were
brought in daily contact. It is sometimes thought in modern times that
such intimacy with those who are suffering takes the joy out of life
for those who {75} are young, but any one who thinks so should consult
a person who has had the actual experience; while occasionally it may
be found that some one with a family history of this kind may think
that he or she was rendered melancholy by it, nine out of ten or even
more will frankly say that they feel sure that they were benefited.
There is nothing in the world that broadens and deepens the
significance of life like intimate contact with suffering, if not in
person, then in those who are near and dear to us.
As a physician, I have often felt that I should like to take people
who are constantly complaining of their little sorrows and trials, who
are downhearted over some minor ailment, who sometimes suffer from
fits of depression precipitated by nothing more, perhaps, than a dark
day or a little humid weather, or possibly even a petty social
disappointment, and put them in contact with cancer patients or others
who are suffering severely day by day, yes, hour by hour, night and
day, and yet who are joyful and often a source of joy to others. Let
us not forget that nearly one hundred thousand people die every year
from cancer in this country alone.
As a physician, I have often found that a {76} chronic invalid in a
house became the center of attraction for the whole household, and
that particularly when it was a woman, whether mother or elder sister,
all of the other members brought their troubles to her and went away
feeling better for what she said to them. I have seen this not in a
few exceptional instances, but so often as to know that it is a rule
of life. Chronic invalids often radiate joy and happiness, while
perfectly well people who suffer from minor ills of the body and mind
are frequently a source of grumpiness, utterly lack sympathy, and are
impossible as companions. An American woman, bedridden for over thirty
years, has organized by correspondence one of the most beautiful
charities of our time.
Pity properly restricted to practical helpfulness without any
sentimentality is a beautiful thing. There is always a danger,
however, of its arousing in its object that self-pity which is so
eminently unlovely and which has so often the direct tendency to
increase rather than decrease whatever painful conditions are present.
Crying over oneself is always to be considered at least hysterical.
Crying, except over a severe loss, is almost unpardonable. {77} It is
often said that a good cry, like a rainstorm, clears the atmosphere of
murk and the dark elements of life, but it is dangerous to have
recourse to it. It is a sign of lack of character almost invariably
and when indulged in to any extent will almost surely result in
deterioration of the power to withstand the trials of life, whatever
they may be.
Professor William James has suggested that not only should men and
women stand the things that come to them in the natural course of
events, but they should even go out and seek certain things hard to
bear with the idea of increasing their power to withstand the
unpleasant things of life. This is, of course, a very old idea in
humanity, and the ascetics from the earliest days of Christianity
taught the doctrine of self-inflicted suffering in order to increase
the power of resistance.
It is usually said that the principal idea which the hermits and
anchorites and the saintly personages of the early Middle Ages, of
whose mortifications we have heard so much, had in inflicting pain on
themselves was to secure merit for the hereafter. Something of that
undoubtedly was in their minds, but their main purpose was quite
literally ascetic. _Ascesis_, from the Greek, means in its strict {78}
etymology just exercise. They were exercising their power to stand
trials and even sufferings, so that when these events came, as
inevitably they would, seeing that we carry round with us what St.
Paul called "this body of our death," they would be prepared for them.
Practically any psychologist of modern times who has given this
subject any serious thought will recognize, as did Professor James,
the genuine psychology of human nature that lies behind these ascetic
practices. Nothing that I know is so thoroughgoing a remedy for
self-pity as the actual seeking at times of painful things in order to
train oneself to bear them. The old-fashioned use of disciplines, that
is, little whips which were used so vigorously sometimes over the
shoulders as to draw blood, or the wearing of chains which actually
penetrated the skin and produced quite serious pain no longer seems
absurd, once it is appreciated that this may be a means of bracing up
character and making the real trials and hardships of life much easier
than would otherwise be the case.
Not that human nature must not be expected to yield a little under
severe trials and bend before the blasts of adverse fortune, but {79}
that there should not be that tendency to exaggerate one's personal
feelings which has unfortunately become characteristic of at least the
better-to-do classes in our time. Not that we would encourage stony
grief, but that sorrow must be restrained and, above all, must not be
so utterly selfish as to be forgetful of others.
Tears should, to a large extent, be reserved, as they are in most
perfectly normal individuals, for joyous rather than sad occasions,
for no one ever was supremely joyful without having tears in the eyes.
It is when we feel most sympathetic to humanity that the gift of tears
comes to us, and no feeling is quite so completely satisfying as comes
from the tears of joy. Mothers who have heard of their boy's bravery,
its recognition by those above him, and its reward by proper symbols,
have had tears come welling to their eyes, while their hearts were
stirred so deeply with sensations of joy and pride that probably they
have never before felt quite so happy.
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