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

An' ye're no' to scale yer tea nor sup the sugar if ony's left in yer cup when ye're dune drinkin'. An' if ye drap yer piece on the floor ye're no' to gang efter it; ye're jist to let on ye've ett it. An' ye're no'—

    'Deed, Lizzie,' interposed her husband, 'ye're the yin to
    think aboot things.'

    'Weel, John, if I dinna tell Macgreegor hoo to behave hissel',
    he'll affront me,' etc., etc., etc.

Who has not thus seen the anxious mother? And who ever saw her worrying and anxiety do much if any good? Train your child by all means in your own home, but let up when you are going out, for your worry worries him, makes him self-conscious, brings about the very disasters you wish to avoid, and at the same time destroys his, your, and everyone's else, pleasure who observes, feels, or hears the expressions of worry.

CHAPTER VII 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