Quotes from Why Worry?

The special aim will be to pay attention to the different varieties of worry, and to offer easily understood and commonplace suggestions which any one may practice daily and continuously, at last automatically, without interfering with his routine work or recreation. Indeed the tranquil mind aids, rather than hinders, efficient work, by enabling its possessor to pass from duty to duty without the hindrance of undue solicitude.

It is my hope that some of the argumentative class may recognize, in my description, their own case instead of their neighbor's, and may of their own initiative adopt some of the suggestions; moreover, that some of the acquiescent, but despairing class will renew their efforts in a different spirit. The aim is, not to accomplish a complete and sudden cure, but to gain something every day, or if losing a little to-day, to gain a little to-morrow, and ultimately to find one's self on a somewhat higher plane, without discouragement though not completely freed from the trammels entailed by faulty mental habit.

Epicurus realized that the apparent inability of the old to acquire new habits is due rather to lack of attention, and to indifference or preoccupation, than to lack of aptitude. He placed, in fact, no limit to the age for learning new methods, stating in his letter to Meneceus,- "Youth is no obstacle to the study of philosophy-neither ought we to be ashamed to concentrate our later years to the labor of speculation. Man has no time limit for learning, and ought never to want strength to cure his mind of all the evils that afflict it."

It is with the ethical side of the philosophy of Marcus Aurelius that we are concerned, and with that portion only which bears on the question of mental equipoise. "Begin the morning," he says, "by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial. All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance of what is good and evil." With regard to the habit of seclusion common among the self-conscious, he says: "If thou didst ever see a hand cut off, or a foot, or a head, lying anywhere apart from the rest of the body, such does a man make himself, as far as he can, who is not content with what happens, and separates himself from others, or does any thing unsocial. Suppose that thou hast detached thyself from the natural unity-for thou wast made by nature a part, but now thou hast cut thyself off-yet here there is this beautiful provision, that it is in thy power again to unite thyself. God has allowed this to no other part, after it has been separated and cut asunder, to come together again. But consider the kindness by which he has distinguished man, for he has put it in his power not to be separated at all from the universal; and when he has been separated, he has allowed him to return and to resume his place as a part." On the futile foreboding which plays so large a part in the tribulation of the worrier, he says: "Do not disturb thyself by thinking of the whole of thy life. Let not thy thoughts at once embrace all the various troubles which thou mayest expect to befall thee; but on every occasion ask thyself, What is there in this which is intolerable and past bearing? for thou wilt be ashamed to confess. In the next place remember that neither the future nor the past pains thee, but only the present. But this is reduced to a very little, if thou only circumscribest it, and chidest thy mind, if it is unable to hold out against even this." Again: "Let not future things disturb thee, for thou wilt come to them, if it shall be necessary, having with thee the same reason which now thou usest for present things." On the dismissal of useless fret, and concentration upon the work in hand, he says: "Labor not as one who is wretched, nor yet as one who would be pitied or admired; but direct thy will to one thing only, to put thyself in motion and to check thyself, as the social reason requires." Regarding senseless fears he counsels: "What need is there of suspicious fear, since it is in thy power to inquire what ought to be done? And if thou seest clear, go by this way content, without turning back: but if thou dost not see clear, stop and take the best advisers. But if any other things oppose thee, go on according to thy powers with due consideration, keeping to that which appears to be just. For it is best to reach this object, and if thou dost fail, let thy failure be in attempting this. He who follows reason in all things is both tranquil and active at the same time, and also cheerful and collected."

The insistent thought magnifies by concentration of attention, and by repetition, the origin of the worry. If my thoughts dwell on my desire for an automobile this subject finally excludes all others, and the automobile becomes, for the time being, the most important thing in the world, hence I worry. Into this worry comes no suggestion of fear-this emotion would be more appropriate, perhaps, if I acquired the automobile and attempted to run it. If, now, I have trained myself to concentrate my attention elsewhere before such thoughts become coercive, the automobile quickly assumes its proper relation to other things, and there is no occasion for worry. This habit of mind once acquired regarding the unessentials of life, it is remarkable how quickly it adapts itself to really important matters.

The qualification unduly is not to be forgotten; a certain discrimination must be exercised before entirely condemning the insistent thought. The insistent thought that one's family must be fed is not a morbid sign. In fact, he also errs who can eliminate this thought and enjoy the ball game. It is not for the deviate of this type that I am writing. Nevertheless, the over-solicitous victim of the "New England Conscience" can almost afford to take a few lessons from the ne'er-do-weel.

In the foundation of the structure we are studying is found exaggerated self-consciousness. Whatever is said, done, or left undone, by others is analyzed by the worrier with reference to its bearing on himself. If others are indifferent it depresses him, if they appear interested they have an ulterior motive, if they look serious he must have displeased them, if they smile it is because he is ridiculous. That they are thinking of their own affairs is the last thought to enter his mind. I suppose it would be an affectation for any of us to deny that, as far as we are concerned, we are the centre of the universe. This conceit does us no harm so long as we remember that there are as many centres of the universe as there are people, cats, mice and other thinking animals. When we forget this our troubles begin. If I enter a strange shop and find they desire security, need I take this as a reflection on my credit? Need I expect to be invited to every entertainment I should like to attend, and to be excused from those that bore me, and shall I make no allowance for the attitude of my host? Is it not rather egotistic for me to suppose that others are vitally interested in the fact that I blush, tremble, or am awkward? Why then should I allow my conduct to be influenced by such trivial matters?

It is said that the victim of jiu jitsu, by breaking one hold, places himself in the greater danger from the next. Similarly, after having conquered a few obsessions, one is overwhelmed with the obsession to set every one straight. Soukanhoff was right in warning the obsessive to beware of pedantry. The question here presents itself whether this line of thought does not foster, rather than lessen, the pedantry and the self-study which it is intended to combat. Why not simply drop the worry and the doubt without further argument? The difficulty is that the mental processes of the over-scrupulous person are such that he cannot summarily drop a habit of thought. He must reason himself out of it. There is no limit to his ability if properly directed; he can gradually modify all his faulty tendencies, and may even finally acquire the habit of automatically dismissing worry, but it would be too much to expect that he suddenly change his very nature at command.

A common obsession is the compulsion to dwell upon the past, to reproduce the circumstances, and painfully to retrace the steps which we took in coming to an erroneous decision which led to a foolish, unnecessary, or perhaps even a wrong decision. One of my earliest impressions in golf was the remark of a veteran who was good enough to make a round with me. "If I had only approached better, I should have made that hole in five," I remarked, after taking seven strokes for a hole. "Perhaps not," he replied; "if you had approached better, perhaps you would have putted worse and taken eight strokes for the hole. At all events, that hole is ancient history now, and you will play this one better if you leave that one alone." He little realized how many times his advice would recur to me elsewhere than on the links. Retrospective worry can be absolutely eliminated from the most obsessive mind by the practice of the veteran's philosophy.

The conscientious self-analyst spends too much time in weighing his ability or inability to perform some task. Between his fear, his worry over the past, and his indecision whether the task should be attempted, he starts with an overwhelming handicap. If he learns to say, "Other people fail; it will not matter if I do this time," he will find the task already half accomplished. The Rev. Francis Tiffany has observed that if a ship could think, and should imagine itself submerged by all the waves between here and Europe, it would dread to cut its moorings; but in reality it has to meet but one wave at a time.

If we once allow ourselves to wonder whether we have turned off the water, enclosed the check, or mailed the letter, it is but a step to an uncomfortable frame of mind which can be relieved only by investigating the matter. This compulsion once acceded to, it becomes more and more easy to succumb. The next step is to blur, by constant repetition, the mental image of the act. In extreme cases the doubter, after turning the gas on and off a dozen times, is finally in doubt whether he can trust his own senses. A certain officer in a bank never succeeded in reaching home after closing hours without returning to try the door of the bank. Upon finding it locked, he would unlock it and disappear within, to open the vault, inspect the securities, and lock them up again. I once saw a victim of this form of doubt spend at least ten minutes in writing a check, and ten minutes more inspecting it, and, after all, he had spelled his own name wrong! Constant supervision only impairs acts which should have become automatic. We have all heard of the centipede who could no longer proceed upon his journey when it occurred to him to question which foot he should next advance.

These doubts lead to chronic indecision. How often, in deciding which of two tasks to take up, we waste the time which would have sufficed for the accomplishment of one, if not both. The doubt and the indecision result directly from over-conscientiousness. It is because of an undue anxiety to do the right thing, even in trivial matters, that the doubter ponders indefinitely over the proper sequence of two equally important (or unimportant) tasks. In the majority of instances it is the right thing for him to pounce upon either. If he pounces upon the wrong one, and completes it without misgiving, he has at least accomplished something in the way of mental training. The chances are, moreover, that the harm done by doing the wrong thing first was not to be compared to the harm of giving way to his doubt, and either drifting into a state of ineffective revery or fretting himself into a frenzy of anxious uncertainty.

The term "imaginary" is too loosely applied to the sensations of the hypochondriac. This designation is unjustified, and only irritates the sufferer, rouses his antagonism, and undermines his confidence in the judgment of his adviser. He knows that the sensations are there. To call them imaginary is like telling one who inspects an insect through a microscope that the claws do not look enormous; they do look enormous-through the microscope-but this does not make them so. The worrier must learn to realize that he is looking at his sensations, as he does everything else, through a microscope.

During an hour's delay, caused by the failure of another to keep an appointment, I formulated the following maxim: "These are the annoyances incident to my business; to fret when they occur means that I cannot manage my business without friction." This may not appeal to the reader, but for me it has proved as good an hour's work as I ever did. Since that time, on the occurrence of similar sources of provocation, I have found it necessary to go no farther than "These are the annoyances," to restore the needful balance. When we allow our gorge to rise at ordinary sources of discomfort, it implies that we are prepared only for our affairs to run with perfect smoothness. This represents the insistent idea carried to an absurdity.

The over-conscientious individual may object that it is selfish to consider his own comfort when he has work to do for others. But expending too freely of our nervous energies, even in a good cause, is like giving to charity so much of our substance that we in turn are obliged to lean on others for support. In properly conserving our own energy we may be lightening the ultimate burden of others. There is no place for selfishness in Haeckel's philosophy regarding the proper balance between duty to one's self and duty to others. Nor was selfishness a failing of the Quaker poet who idealized "The flawless symmetry of man, The poise of heart and mind."

It will harm few of us to take a bird's eye view of our affairs at stated intervals, and ask ourselves if the time has not arrived when it will be a saving of time and money as well as worry for us to delegate more of the details, and more even of the responsibilities, to others, concentrating our own energies upon such tasks as we are now peculiarly qualified to undertake. To the man determined to accomplish a lifetime of work before he rests, there is food for thought in the following anecdote: When Pyrrhus was about to sail for Italy, Cineas, a wise and good man, asked him what were his intentions and expectations. "To conquer Rome," said Pyrrhus. "And what will you do next, my lord?" "Next I will conquer Italy." "And after that?" "We will subdue Carthage, Macedonia, all Africa, and all Greece." "And when we have conquered all we can, what shall we do?" "Do? Why, then we will sit down and spend our time in peace and comfort." "Ah, my lord," said the wise Cineas, "what prevents our being in peace and comfort now?" The time to take a vacation is before one is exhausted. If one is discontented during his vacation, he should take it, none the less, as a matter of duty, not expecting to enjoy every moment of it, but contenting himself with the anticipation of greater pleasure in the resumption of his duties. He should cultivate an interest in out-door occupation or some study that carries him into the fields or woods. Aside from the time on shipboard, the worst possible vacation for the over-worked business or professional man is the trip to Europe, if spent in crowding into the shortest possible time the greatest possible amount of information on matters artistic, architectural, and historic.

Try the following suggestion on approaching the house after a hard day's work. Say to yourself, "Why tired and cross? Why not tired and good-natured?" The result may startle the family and cause inquiries for your health, but "Don't Worry," if it does; console yourself with the thought they will like you none the less for giving them a glimpse of that sunny nature of which they have often heard.

The fad should not be pursued too strenuously, or its charm is lost. A lady once told me that she had given up studying flowers because she found she could not master botany in the time at her disposal. Another sees no use in taking up history unless he can become an authority on some epoch. Another declines to study because he can never overtake the college graduate. But one of the best informed men of my acquaintance had no college education. One of his fads was history, with which he was far more familiar than any but the exceptional college man, outside the teachers of that branch of learning. The usefulness of the fad does not depend upon the perfection attained in its pursuit, but upon the pleasure in its pursuit, and upon the diversion of the mind from its accustomed channels. The more completely one learns to concentrate his thoughts on an avocation, the more enthusiasm and effectiveness he can bring to bear on his vocation in its turn. A fad that occupies the hands, such as carpentering, turning, or photography, is peculiarly useful if one's taste runs in that direction. One handicap in cultivating the fad is the lack of interest on the part of our associates, but if we become genuinely interested in any fad that is at all worth while, we shall inevitably add new acquaintances likely to prove at least as interesting as those of our present friends, who have no thoughts outside their daily round of toil. The more fads one cultivates, so long as he avoids the obsession to obtrude them at all times and places, the more interesting he will, in his turn, become to others.

The over-solicitude that defeats its own end, in the case of a parent, has been admirably portrayed by Arthur Benson in "Beside Still Waters,"-"there was nothing in the world that he more desired than the company and the sympathy of his children; but he had, beside this, an intense and tremulous sense of his responsibility toward them. He attached an undue importance to small indications of character, and thus the children were seldom at ease with their father, because he rebuked them constantly, and found frequent fault, doing almost violence to his tenderness, not from any pleasure in censoriousness, but from a terror, that was almost morbid, of the consequences of the unchecked development of minute tendencies." Something must be left to natural growth, and to fortune, even in such important matters as the rearing of children.

One day, with pride, I called the attention of my easy-going friend to the fact that I was eating a dish I had not ordered. He quietly remarked that the next step was to eat it and say nothing! Another friend has this motto in his dining-room: "Eat what is set before you and be thankful." His children will open their eyes when they find others, less reasonably reared, demanding that the potatoes be changed because they are sprinkled with parsley, that a plate be replaced because it has had a piece of cheese upon it, or that the salad of lettuce and tomato be removed in favor of one with tomato alone. A lady recently told me of breakfasting with a foreign sojourner in America, who upon being offered the contents of an egg broken into a glass, was not satisfied with declining it, but felt impelled also to express his extreme disgust at this method of serving it, fortunately to the amusement, rather than to the annoyance of his hostess. "After this, know likewise," says Epictetus, "that you are a brother too; and that to this character it belongs to make concessions, to be easily persuaded, to use gentle language, never to claim for yourself any non-essential thing, but cheerfully to give up these to be repaid by a larger share of things essential. For consider what it is, instead of a lettuce, for instance, or a chair, to procure for yourself a good temper. How great an advantage gained!"

The maxim "What is worth doing at all is worth doing well," if carried to its ultimate conclusion by the over-careful, would justify the expenditure of a quarter of an hour in sharpening a lead-pencil. This maxim, while losing in sententiousness would gain in reason if it ran thus: "What is worth doing at all is worth doing as well as the situation demands." "Never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day," an excellent maxim for the shiftless, must not be taken too literally by the individual already obsessed to do to-day twice what he can and quadruple what he ought. Neither the chronic doubter nor the prematurely thoughtful need be admonished, "Look before you leap," or "Be sure you're right, then go ahead." Such guides to conduct, however effective in the case of three individuals, in the fourth hinder accomplishment by encouraging querulous doubt;-it is for the benefit of the fourth that these pages are written. A revolutionary effort must be made before the worrier and the folly-doubter can throw off his shackles. It may be questioned whether this sort of philosophy does not savor of laissez-faire, and tend to produce indifference; but the worry against which these efforts are directed is a state of undue solicitude,-due solicitude is not discouraged. Fortunately, as partial offset to the many maxims stirring to increased activity, there exist certain maxims of less strenuous, but not unreasonable, trend, thus:-"What can't be cured must be endured," "Patient waiters are no losers." Such maxims are quite as worthy of consideration by the obsessive as any of those previously cited. While they modify overzeal, they detract in no way from effective, even strenuous, endeavor.

There are two ways of cultivating botanical as well as other knowledge; namely, the passive and the active. The passive method is to let someone inform us; the active is to find out something for ourselves. The latter is the only effective method. Suppose we start with the wild flowers: The first step is to purchase a popular illustrated book on this subject, preferably one in which the flowers are arranged according to color. We first learn, in the introduction, the principal parts of the flower, as the calyx, the corolla, the stamen and the pistil. We find that the arrangements of leaves and flowers are quite constant, that the leaves of some plants are opposite, of others alternate; of still others from the root only, that flowers are solitary, in raceme, head, spike or otherwise clustered. It now behooves us to take a walk upon a country road with our eyes open and our book under our arm. Along the roadsides passing vehicles have scattered the seeds of many flowering plants. We decide to pick and learn the first white blossom we see. This blossom appears, we will say, upon a plant about a foot high. We notice that its leaves are opposite, that its corolla has five petals and that its calyx is inflated. We now look through the section on white flowers. The first plant described has leaves from the root only; the second is a tall shrub, these we pass, therefore, and continue until we find one answering the description, leaves opposite, calyx inflated, corolla of five petals. When we reach it we have identified the plant; we now feel a sense of ownership in the Bladder Campion, and are quite shocked when our friend calls it only "a weed." Meantime we have noted many familiar names and some familiar illustrations which we must identify on our next ramble. On consulting our timepiece we find that we have absolutely spent a couple of hours in complete forgetfulness of the daily grind, to say nothing of having filled our lungs with comparatively fresh air, and having taken a little exercise. Best of all, we have started a new set of associations; we have paved the way for new acquaintances, Linnaeus, Gray, Dioscorides and Theophrastus, to say nothing of our friend so-and-so whom we always thought rather tiresome but with whom we now have something in common. We shall take up our daily grind to-morrow with a new zest for having forgotten it for a few hours, and find it less of a grind than usual; moreover, we now have an object to encourage another stroll in the country. If we continue as we have begun we shall soon find ourselves prying into the more scientific works on botany, and perhaps eventually extending our interest to the birds, the beasts and the boulders. One of these days we may become quite proficient amateur naturalists, but this is only by the way; the real advantage to us has been the externalizing of our interests.

It is not necessary to devote an enormous amount of time to such pursuits. One has only to purchase Miss Huntington's "Studies of Trees in Winter" and learn the trees in his own doorway, or upon his street, to awaken an interest that will serve him in good stead upon a railroad journey, or during an otherwise monotonous sojourn in the country. A walk around the block before dinner with such an object in view is more restful than pondering in one's easy-chair over the fluctuations of the stock market, and the man who is "too busy" for such mental relaxation is paving the way for ultimate, perhaps early, breakdown. Once started on the trees, the man who did not even know that their buds were visible in the winter, after absorbing the contents of the popular tree-books may find himself looking for something more elaborate. He may even look forward to his next western trip with pleasure instead of disgust, now that he anticipates seeing at close hand the eucalyptus, the Monterey cypress, and the pinus ponderosa.

Among other sayings, whether of home manufacture or acquired, I have often found comfort in a suggestion first called to my attention by my friend, Dr. Maurice Richardson, who carries, I believe, Epictetus in his bag, but who does not despise the lesser prophets. One day when I was borrowing trouble about some prospective calamity, he said he always drew consolation from the old farmer's observation: "Mebbe 'taint so!"

The obsession to "arrive" is a fertile source of fret and worry. This habit of mind leads to frantic and impatient labor and blocks our pleasure at every point. The person who plays a game only to see who wins loses half the benefit of the recreation. Here are two ways of walking the half-mile to and from my office: Suppose I start out with my mind on my destination, thinking only of what I shall do when I get there, and how I shall do it. This thought influences my whole body. I am all "keyed up," my muscles are tense, my breathing, even, is constricted and the walk does me comparatively little good. Suppose, now, I decide I am making a mistake, and determine to live in the present. General relaxation follows, I take a deep breath, and begin to notice my surroundings. I may even observe the sky-line of the buildings I have passed daily for years without knowing they had a sky-line; my gait becomes free and life takes on a different aspect. I have taken a long step toward mental tranquility as well as gaining "power through repose."

Perhaps I have dwelt too much upon the extreme results of morbid mental tendencies, and too little upon the ideal for which we should strive. This ideal I shall not attempt to portray, but leave it rather to the imagination. Suffice it to say that the ladder by which self-control is attained is so long that there is ample room to ascend and descend without reaching either end. Some of us are started high on the ladder, some low; but it is certainly within the power of each to alter somewhat his level. We can slide down, but must climb up; and that such commonplaces as are here presented may help some of my fellow worriers to gain a rung or two is my earnest wish. Even when we slip back we can appreciate the sentiment of Ironsides: "Night after night the cards were fairly shuffled And fairly dealt, but still I got no hand. The morning came, but I with mind unruffled Did simply say, 'I do not understand.' "Life is a game of whist; from unseen sources The cards are shuffled and the hands are dealt. Vain are our efforts to control the forces, Which, though unseen, are no less strongly felt. "I do not like the way the cards are shuffled, But still I like the game and want to play, And through the long, long night with mind unruffled, Play what I get until the dawn of day."