Quit Your Worrying! - George Wharton James (great books to read TXT) 📗

abundance of spirit and exuberance to those who have little or none, and thus will you lay up treasure within your own soul which will convert hell into heaven, and give you joy forever.

So long as men and women believe that happiness lies in outdistancing, surpassing their fellows in exterior or material things, they cannot help but be subjects to worry. To determine to gain a larger fortune than that possessed by another man is a sure invitation to worry to enter into possession of one's soul. Who has not seen the vain struggles, the distress, the worry of unsatisfied ambitions that would have amounted to nothing had they been gratified? In Women's Clubs—as well as men's—many a heart-ache is caused because some other woman gains an office, is elected to a position, is appointed on a committee you had coveted.

The remedy for this kind of worry is to change the aim of life. Instead of making position, fame, the attainment of fortune, office, a fine house, an automobile, the object of existence, make the doing of something worthy a noble manhood or womanhood the object of your ambition. Strive to make yourself worthy to be the best president your club has ever had; endeavor to be the finest equipped, mentally, for the work that is to be done, whether you are chosen to do it or not, and keep on, and on, and still on, finding your joy in the work, in the benefit it is to yourself, in the power it is storing up within you.

Then, as sure as the sun shines, the time will come when you will be chosen to do the needed work. "Your own will come to you." Nothing can hinder it. It will flow as certainly into your hands as the waters of the river flow into the sea.

CHAPTER XV ENVY AND WORRY

Envy is a prolific source of worry. Once allow this demon of unrest to fasten itself in one's vitals, and worry claims every waking hour. Envy is that peculiar demon of discontent that cannot see the abilities, attainments, achievements, or possessions of another without malicious determination to belittle, deride, make light of, or absolutely deny their existence, while all the time covetously craving them for itself. Andrew Tooke pictures Envy as a vile female:

  A deadly paleness in her cheek was seen;
  Her meager skeleton scarce cased with skin;
  Her looks awry; an everlasting scowl
  Sits on her brow; her teeth deform'd and foul;
  Her breast had gall more than her breast could hold;
  Beneath her tongue coats of poison roll'd;
  No smile e'er smooth'd her furrow'd brow but those
  Which rose from laughing at another's woes;
  Her eyes were strangers to the sweets of sleep,
  Devouring spite for ever waking keep;
  She sees bless'd men with vast success crown'd,
  Their joys distract her, and their glories wound;
  She kills abroad, herself's consum'd at home,
  And her own crimes are her perpetual martyrdom.

Ever watching, with bloodshot eyes, the good things of others, she hates them for their possessions, longs to possess them herself, lets her covetousness gnaw hourly at her very vitals, and yet, in conversation with others, slays with slander, vile innuendo, and falsehood, the reputation of those whose virtues she covets.

As Robert Pollock wrote of one full of envy:

  It was his earnest work and daily toil
  With lying tongue, to make the noble seem
  Mean as himself.

* * * * *

  Whene'er he heard,
  As oft he did, of joy and happiness,
  And great prosperity, and rising worth,
  'Twas like a wave of wormwood o'er his soul
  Rolling its bitterness.

Aye! and he drank in great draughts of this bitter flood, holding it in his mouth, tasting its foul and biting qualities until his whole being seemed saturated with it, hating it, dreading it, suffering every moment while doing it, yet enduring it, because of his envy at the good of others.

Few there are, who, at some time or other in their lives, do not have a taste, at least, of the stinging bite of envy. Girls are envious of each other's good looks, clothes, possessions, houses, friends; boys of the strength, skill, ability, popularity of others; women of other women, men of other men, just as when they were boys and girls.

One of the strongest words the great Socrates ever wrote was against envy. He said:

Envy is the daughter of pride, the author of murder and revenge, the beginner of secret sedition, the perpetual tormentor of virtue. Envy is the filthy slime of the soul; a venom, a poison, a quicksilver, which consumeth the flesh, and drieth up the marrow of the bones.

And history clearly shows that the wise philosopher stated facts. Caligula slew his brother because he possessed a beauty that led him to be more esteemed and favored than he. Dionysius, the tyrant, was vindictive and cruel to Philoxenius, the musician, because he could sing; and with Plato, the philosopher, because he could dispute, better than himself. Even the great Cambyses slew his brother, Smerdis, because he was a stronger and better bowman than himself or any of his party. It was envy that led the courtiers of Spain to crave and seek the destruction of Columbus, and envy that set a score of enemies at the heels of Cortes, the conqueror of Peru.

It is a fearful and vindictive devil, is this devil of envy, and he who yields to it, who once allows it admittance to the citadel of his heart, will soon learn that every subsequent waking and even sleeping moment is one of worry and distress.

CHAPTER XVI DISCONTENT AND WORRY

Closely allied to envy is discontent. These are blood relations, and both are prolific sources of worry. And lest there are those who think because I have revealed, in the preceding chapter, the demon of worry—envy—as one that attacks the minds of the great and mighty, it does not enter the hearts of everyday people, let me quote, entire, an article and a poem recently written by Ella Wheeler Wilcox in The Los Angeles Examiner. The discontent referred to clearly comes from envy. Some one has blond tresses, while she has black. This arouses her envy. She is envious because another's eyes are blue, while hers are brown; another is tall, while she is small; etc., etc. There is nothing, indeed, that she cannot weep and worry over:

  There is a certain girl I know, a pretty little elf,
  Who spends almost her entire thoughts in pity for herself.

  Her glossy tresses, raven black, cause her to weep a pond—
  She is so sorry for herself because they are not blond.

  Her eyes, when dry, are very bright and very brown, 'tis true,
  But they are almost always wet, because they are not blue.

  She is of medium height, and when she sees one quite tall
  She weeps all day in keenest pain because she is so small.

  But if she meets some tiny girl whom she considers fair,
  Then that she is so big herself she sobs in great despair.

  When out upon a promenade her tears she cannot hide,
  To think she is obliged to walk while other folks can ride.

  But if she drives, why then she weeps—it is so hard to be
  Perched stiffly in a carriage seat while other girls run free.

  She used to cry herself quite sick to think she had to go
  Month after month to dreary schools; that was her constant woe.

  But on her graduating day, my, how her tears did run!
  It seemed so sorrowful to know that her school life was done.

  One day she wept because she saw a funeral train go by—
  It was so sad that she must live while other folks could die.

  And really all her friends will soon join with her in those tears
  Unless she takes a brighter view of life ere many years.

The conceited girl or woman is tiresome and unpleasant as a companion, but the morbidly discontented woman is far worse. Perhaps you have met her, with her eternal complaint of the injustice of Fate toward her.

She feels that she is born for better things than have befallen her; her family does not understand her; her friends misjudge her; the public slights her.

If she is married she finds herself superior to her husband and to her associates. She is eternally longing for what she has not, and when she gets it is dissatisfied.

The sorrowful side of life alone appeals to her.

This she believes is due to her "artistic nature." The injustice of fortune and the unkindness of society are topics dear to her heart. She finds her only rapture in misery.

If she is religiously inclined she looks toward Heaven with more grim satisfaction in the thought that it will strip fame, favor and fortune from the unworthy than because it will give her the benefits she feels she deserves.

She does not dream that she is losing years of Heaven here upon earth by her own mental attitude.

WE BUILD OUR HEAVENS THOUGHT BY THOUGHT.

If you are dwelling upon the dark phases of your destiny and upon the ungracious acts of Fate, you are shaping more of the same experience for yourself here and in realms beyond.

You are making happiness impossible for yourself upon any plane. In your own self lies Destiny.

I have known a woman to keep her entire family despondent for years by her continual assertions that she was out of her sphere, misunderstood and unappreciated.

The minds of sensitive children accepted these statements and grieved over "Poor Mother's" sad life until their own youth was embittered. The morbid mother seized upon the sympathies of her children like a leech and sapped their young lives of joy.

The husband grew discouraged and indifferent under the continual strain, and what might have been a happy home was a desolate one, and its memory is a nightmare to the children to-day.

    Understand yourself and your Divine possibilities and you will
    cease to think you are misunderstood.

    It is not possible to misunderstand a beautiful, sunny day.
    All nature rejoices in its loveliness.

    Give love, cheerfulness, kindness and good-will to all
    humanity, and you need not worry about being misunderstood.

    Give the best you have to each object, purpose and individual,
    and you will eventually receive the best from humanity.

CHAPTER XVII COWARDICE AND WORRY

Cowardice is a much more prolific source of worry than most people imagine. There are many varieties of cowardice, all tracing their ancestry back to fear. Fear truly makes cowards of us all. There are the physical cowards, the social cowards, the business cowards, the hang-on-to-your-job cowards, the political cowards, the moral cowards, the religious cowards, and fifty-seven, nay, a hundred and one other varieties. Each and all of these have their own attendant demons of worry. Every barking dog becomes a lion ready to tear one to pieces, and no bridge is strong enough to allow us to pass over in safety. No cloud has a silver lining, and every rain-storm is sure to work injury to the crops rather than bring the needful moisture for their vivification.

What a piteous sight to see a man who dares not express his honest opinions, who must crawl instead of walk upright, in the presence of his employer, lest he lose his job. How his cowardice worries him, meets him at every turn, torments him, lest some incautious word be repeated, lest he say or do the wrong thing. And so long as there are cowards to employ, bully employers will exist. Nay, the cowardice seems to call out bullying qualities. Just as a cur will follow you with barkings and threatening growls if you run from him, and yet turn tail and run when you boldly face him, so with most men, with society, with the world—flee from them, show your fear of them, and they will harry you, but boldly face them, they gentle down immediately, fawn upon you, lie down, or, to use an expressive slang phrase, "come and eat out of your hand."

How politicians straddle the fence, refrain from expressing their opinions, deal in glittering generalities, because of their cowardly fears. How they turn their sails to catch every breath of popular favor. How cautious, politic, wary, they are, and how