IXON WORRY
“In my life,” said a woman, “I have worried much, but never have I worried about the right thing or the right situation. The thing to worry about always turned out something different from what I spent my energy upon. One day this view of the worry question occurred forcibly to my mind, and the ridiculous waste of time and strength appalled me. I have never had a worry since.”
Another woman whom I know came to a realization of the same truth a few years ago in much the same way. She worried all the time about something—and there is always a Something to be worried about if we give way to it. She found one day that this habit of crossing a bridge before she came to it—and perhaps it would never be come up to—was making her old before her time. She realized suddenly thatshe was living at a tremendously high tension—that she was in a perpetual hurry—that she could no longer enjoy a good play or a good book or a good concert without a guilty look every now and then at her watch—that she could not even ride in a horse-car without bracing herself, as if by that she could propel the thing and reach her destination sooner.
And then she realized that she was wasting Life—that she was missing half of all the daily beauty that lay around her, and that existence had become for her merely tension. Just then Annie Payson Call’s “Power Through Repose” fell into her hands, and she decided to adopt a new motto, “Relax.” She stopped worrying, teaching herself to remember that worrying helps no cause and no event, until she actually comes up to it, and then it is too late. She began to look for enjoyment and beauty in the little things of life. She began to relax, even on horse-cars. To-day she is the embodiment not only of calmness, but of courage. She has forgotten that she ever had nerves. She is happy. She relaxed.
In that way we can keep our youth and defy wrinkles. Doctors can tell you—if complexionbeautifiers won’t—that ninety-nine hundredths of the wrinkles and the unwelcome crow’s-feet on women’s faces are caused by Worry. So are one-half the illnesses—wherein lies the power of mental and “Christian” science. We can imagine ourselves into heaven if we will, or we can worry ourselves into that other place—unmentionable in polite circles—but we cannot reverse that process. The spirit with which we accept life makes all the difference. We can take up burdens groaning, “Oh, how shall I ever bear you?” or laughing, “Don’t think you can get the better of me.”
Most women live in a state of mental turmoil the greater part of their lives. Self-poise seems to be the rarest of virtues among women. We allow ourselves to be continually stirred up over trifles, to be annoyed by things not worth minding. We allow petty criticisms to burn into our very souls. A disparaging word, a thoughtless remark, the slightest opposition to our pet scheme, are allowed to disturb the unruffled peace that is our birthright, and we either suffer agonies in silence or we let ourselves down to undignified wrangling.
Or, if we have no immediate cause for troubleoutside ourselves, we worry. As Helen Watterson Moody neatly puts it: “Women are disposed to take things too seriously and to dissipate vital force in that nervous debauch known as worrying.” And she very wisely goes on to say that every woman ought to be obliged by some law to spend an hour or two a day absolutely alone and unrelaxed, that the whirling mind and quivering nerves might hush themselves with the blessedness of silence.
Self-poise would be the natural result, however impractical the proposition may appear. Some women are born with the gift of self-poise; but most of us have to acquire it or, worse, get along the best or the worst way we can without. It is never thrust upon us.
Once in a while we come across a woman who is blessed with it; and oh, what a comfortable creature she is—comfortable and comforting. Trying situations and trying people are as nothing to her. Some one has likened this power to keep one’s poise to an oil which makes the machinery of life run smoothly. Better than that, it is an elevated plane that holds those who walk thereon far above the mire of petty smallnesses of wrong living and thinking.
There is a man in Boston who has, naturally, a quick, irritable temper, but who is noted for his uniform gentleness and patience in dealing with the hundreds of people with whom he comes in contact every day. In his office hangs a placard with the following inscription, which I recommend to housekeepers, mothers, business women and everybody else. It runs thus:
“An American poet has said:“‘It’s easy enough to be pleasantWhen life flows along like a song;But the man worth whileIs the man who will smileWhen everything goes dead wrong.’“P.S.—This applies to women also.”
“An American poet has said:
“‘It’s easy enough to be pleasantWhen life flows along like a song;But the man worth whileIs the man who will smileWhen everything goes dead wrong.’
“‘It’s easy enough to be pleasantWhen life flows along like a song;But the man worth whileIs the man who will smileWhen everything goes dead wrong.’
“‘It’s easy enough to be pleasantWhen life flows along like a song;But the man worth whileIs the man who will smileWhen everything goes dead wrong.’
“‘It’s easy enough to be pleasant
When life flows along like a song;
But the man worth while
Is the man who will smile
When everything goes dead wrong.’
“P.S.—This applies to women also.”
After all, it is a question of mind-discipline. Let us once realize that we lack this power over ourselves and determine to acquire it, and we are in a fair way to be sweeter and better.
There might be classes established for the teaching of self-poise to all the wrangling women, all the sensitive women, all the over-ambitious women, all the selfish women. But, dear me! how many of us could say we are beyondthe need of joining? And, besides, there are no Marcus Aureliuses in the teachers’ bureaus, just now, either.
We are placed in the scheme of life just where we were meant to be. Now, then, let us live it out. What is meant for us to do, let us do; but let us not worry over what is not meant for us. It depends on us whether we take this for a world of honest, cheerful work, or a world of hard labor. It is all character-building. Ever think of that? All character-building.
All the world needs of us, all God asks of us, is that we live out our own lives truly, faithfully, earnestly and the best we possibly can. It is for us to find out how—not sit down or hamper our work with worrying about the how.
There are two ways of walking through the world—plodding dejectedly along with our eyes on the muddy road, seeing only the obstacles in our way and feeling only the burdens on our backs; or holding our heads high, seeing the beautiful broad sky above, smelling the scent of flowers, tasting the delights of living and feeling the love of God. Which shall we choose?
A pleasant face carries joy and sheds sunshine. A worried, harassed countenance may make awhole roomful miserable. Every happy thought lends a pleasant line to the face, and there is no excuse for looking otherwise. All girls are more or less pretty at twenty; but it has been her own fault if the woman of fifty has not the best kind of beauty—that indefinable sweetness of graciousness that reflects itself in every feature of the face. Happiness is ours if we will but reach out for our small share and make the most of it. But if we reject it, saying, “What have we in common with thee?” we deserve to be miserable, and we are. More than that, we are disagreeable to other people; and in this world that is a thing we ought to consider.
Nothing that other people say or do can affect us much unless we let it, and it is much easier not to be troubled by outside worries—and all worries are outside our true lives—than to nurse trouble.
Did you ever try to help a person who will not be helped? To shed sunshine into a soul that will not empty itself or be emptied of shadows? Is there anything more discouraging? But after all, the best thing we can do for our friends is to be good and fine and true. Nothing tells like living. “The kingdom of heaven” is within.When we truly desire the best, we lose the certainty that it is revealed only to us and to those who agree with us.
God opens a great fountain of truth, that shows itself in many springs; we hold our cups for its waters of life, and our cups are of many shapes, molded by our own hands and decorated with our own thoughts; but they all hold living water, and the shape or pattern of the cup signifies nothing. If we keep this thought in mind, we shall not be overmuch disturbed that we cannot rule our world. As time goes on we change our cups; we learn to make them of larger mold and of more beautiful pattern, but however much we may draw from the fountain, its flow does not diminish, and no one is denied the water of life.
It is of no importance whether you or I see first the vision for which the world waits. The important thing is that we do not insist that others shall see it before their time. Emerson says: “God screens us evermore from premature ideas. Our eyes are holden, that we cannot see things that stare us in the face until the hour arrives when the mind is ripened; then we behold them, and the time that we saw them not is like a dream.” We wait for the child. We aretenderly patient while he stumbles in learning to walk, patient also when we find that he must develop his character by his own experiences, and not by ours. Let us be patient with each other and with the world.
Nobody can make us happy. It all depends upon ourselves; and by the same token nobody can make us unhappy. What will you take from life’s menu? a strengthening feast of joy and sweetness, or the blighting, unsatisfying fare of bitterness and discouragement? It’s just for you to choose. And always remember that your song may cheer some one behind you whose courage is sinking low.
“Dear restless heart, be still, for peace is God’s own smile,His love can every wrong and sorrow reconcile;Just love and love and love and calmly wait awhile.“Dear restless heart, be still; don’t fret and worry so;God hath a thousand ways His love and help to show;Just trust and trust and trust until His will you know.”
“Dear restless heart, be still, for peace is God’s own smile,His love can every wrong and sorrow reconcile;Just love and love and love and calmly wait awhile.“Dear restless heart, be still; don’t fret and worry so;God hath a thousand ways His love and help to show;Just trust and trust and trust until His will you know.”
“Dear restless heart, be still, for peace is God’s own smile,His love can every wrong and sorrow reconcile;Just love and love and love and calmly wait awhile.
“Dear restless heart, be still, for peace is God’s own smile,
His love can every wrong and sorrow reconcile;
Just love and love and love and calmly wait awhile.
“Dear restless heart, be still; don’t fret and worry so;God hath a thousand ways His love and help to show;Just trust and trust and trust until His will you know.”
“Dear restless heart, be still; don’t fret and worry so;
God hath a thousand ways His love and help to show;
Just trust and trust and trust until His will you know.”