"The worry cow would have lived till nowIf she'd only saved her breath.She feared the hay wouldn't last all daySo choked herself to death."
The quantity of food proved by experiment to suffice for the best work, physical or mental, is surprisingly small. A feeling of emptiness, even, is better preparation for active exercise than one of satiety.
It is a national obsession with us that no meal is complete without meat. Order fruit, a cereal, rolls and coffee, at the hotel some morning, and the chances are ten to one that the waiter will ask what you are going to have forbreakfast, though you have already ordered more than is absolutely necessary for that meal, as demonstrated by the custom upon the Continent, where the sense of fitness is as much violated by the consumption of an enormous breakfast as it is with us by the omission of a single detail.
It may be asked if it is not subversive of discipline for the hotelhabituéto become too easy-going. There is doubtless a limit to the virtue of allowing ourselves to be imposed upon, but there is little fear that the individual who opens the question will err in this direction. It behooves him rather to consider the danger of his occupying the unenviable position of the "fuss-budget."
IBSEN:Emperor and Galilean.
Few, perhaps, among the high-strung and delicately organized can truly say that this fear has never occurred to them. It affects even children, at an age when their minds are supposed to be taken up with the pleasures and pursuits appropriate to their years. This fear is generally dispelled by the serious occupations of life, but in certain cases it persists as an insistent and compelling thought.
It may afford consolation to know that insanity results, in the majority of cases, from physical disease of the brain, and that it is ordinarily unanticipated, unsuspected and uncredited by the patient. There is no more danger of insanity attacking the worrier and the delicate than the robust and the indifferent. In fact, the temperament which produces the faulty habits we are considering rarely culminates in insanity. It seems worth while, however, to replace the vague fear of insanity by a knowledge of the variety of mental unbalance remotely threatening the person who lacks the desire or the will, to place a check upon these faulty habits of mind. We may thus, in the worrier whose fears have taken this direction, substitute effort for foreboding.
It is ourconductrather than our thoughts that determines the question of insanity. The most practical definition of insanity I know is that of Spitzka, the gist of which is that a person is insane who can no longer correctly register impressions from the outside world, or can no longer act upon those impressions so as to formulate and carry out a line of conduct consistent with his age, education and station.
The banker may repeat the process of locking and unlocking, even to the point of doubting his own sensations, but he may still be able to formulate, and carry out, a line of conduct consistent with his position, though at the expense of intense mental suffering.
In the realm of morbid fears, the person obsessed by fear of contamination shows no sign of insanity in using tissue paper to turn the door-knob, or in avoiding objects that have been touched by others. Up to this point his phobia has led merely to eccentricity, but suppose his fear so far dominates him that he can no longer pursue his occupation for fear of handling tools or pen, and that he persistently refuses to eat through fear of poison, he has then reached the point where he can no longer formulate lines of conduct, and he is insane.
It is, then, important to foresee the tendency of phobias, and to accustom one's self to the point of view that the worst possible harm, for example from contamination by ordinary objects, is no worse than mental unbalance, and that the probable consequences thereof (nil) are infinitely preferable.
Even with regard to more tangible fears, as of elevators, fires, tunnels, thunder-storms, and the like, a certain tranquility may be gradually attained by a similar philosophy. Suppose instead of dwelling on the possibility of frightful disaster the sufferer practices saying: "The worst that can happen to me is no worse than for me to let these fears gradually lessen my sphere of operations till I finally shut myself up in my chamber and become a confirmed hypochondriac." One should also remember that many another shares his fears, but shows no sign because he keeps a "stiff upper lip," an example he will do well to follow, not only for his own eventual comfort, but for the sake of his influence on others, particularly on those younger than himself. The pursuance of this line of thought may result in the former coward seeking instead of avoiding, opportunities to ride in elevators and tunnels, and even to occupy an inside seat at the theatre, just to try his new-found power, and to rejoice in doing as others do instead of being set apart as a hopeless crank.
These fears bear directly on the question of hypochondria. We have already seen how the sphere of the hypochondriac is narrowed. His work and his play are alike impeded by his fear of drafts, of wet feet, of loud noises, of palpitation, of exhaustion, of pain, and eventually of serious disease. Is he insane? Not so long as he can carry out a line of conduct consistent with his station and surroundings.
It is remarkable how many obsessions we may harbor without causing us to swerve from our accustomed line of conduct. Whatever our thoughts, our conduct may be such that we attract little attention beyond the passing observation that we are a little odd. We may break down, it is true, under the double load we carry, but we are in little danger of insanity. Those established in the conviction that they cannot stand noises or other sources of discomfort, rarely reach the point of a certain poor old lady who used to wander from clinic to clinic, able to think of nothing else, and to talk of nothing else, than the ringing in her ears, and to attend to no other business than efforts for its relief. She was counselled again and again that since nothing was to be found in the ears she should endeavor to reconcile herself to the inevitable, and turn her thoughts in other directions. Unfortunately, she had become peculiarly adept in the detection of disagreeable sights, sounds, and other sources of irritation, and had for a long term of years practiced quite the opposite of control. She had hitherto either insisted on discontinuance of all sources of irritation, fled their neighborhood, or put on blue glasses and stopped her ears with cotton. When, finally, her sharpened sense caught the sound of her own circulation, she could think of nothing but this unavoidable source of discomfort, which was prepared to follow her to the uttermost parts of the earth.
A well-known author has said that the difference between sanity and insanity depends only on the power to conceal the emotions. While this definition will hardly pass in law or medicine, it surely offers food for thought. Suppose for a moment that we were dominated by the impulse to externalize all our thoughts and all our emotions, there would be some basis for the common, but inaccurate, saying that everyone is insane.
This brings us to a form of insanity which the obsessive may well bear in mind, namely, that known as manic-depressive. This disorder, in its typical form, is shown by recurring outbursts of uncontrollable mental and physical activity (mania), alternating with attacks of profound depression (melancholia). This form of insanity represents the inability to control an extreme degree of the varied moods to which we all are subject. Long before the modern classification of mental disorders, Burton, in his introduction to the "Anatomy of Melancholy," expressed this alternation of moods thus:
"When I go musing all alone,Thinking of divers things foreknown,When I build castles in the ayr,Void of sorrow and void of feare,Pleasing myself with phantasms sweet,Me thinks the time runs very fleet.All my joyes to this are folly,Naught so sweet as melancholy."When I lie waking all alone,Recounting what I have ill done,My thoughts on me they tyrannize,Feare and sorrow me surprise,Whether I tarry still or go,Me thinks the time moves very slow.All my griefs to this are jolly,Naught so sad as melancholy."
"I'll not change my life with any King,I ravisht am: can the world bringMore joy, than still to laugh and smile,In pleasant toyes time to beguile?Do not, O do not trouble me,So sweet content I feel and see.All my joyes to this are folly,None so divine as melancholy."I'll change my state with any wretchThou canst from goale or dunghill fetch:My pain's past cure, another hell,I may not in this torment dwell,Now desperate I hate my life,Lend me a halter or a knife;All my griefs to this are jolly,None so damn'd as melancholy."
The depressed stage of this disorder is commonly shown by retardation of thought and motion, the excited stage by pressure of activity and acceleration of thought. In the so-called "flight of ideas" words succeed each other with incredible rapidity, without goal idea, but each word suggesting the next by sound or other association, thus:
"Are you blue?"
"Blue, true blue, red white and blue, one flag and one nation, one kingdom, one king, no not one king, one president, we are going to have a president first, cursed, the worst."
Who does not recognize the modest prototype of this elaborate rigmarole chasing itself through his mind as he walks the street in jaunty mood, and who of us would not surprise and alarm his friends if he should suddenly let go his habitual control, express his every thought and materialize his every passing impulse to action? Who can doubt that the person who has trained himself for years to repress his obsessions is less likely to give way to this form of insanity than one who has never practiced such training? Let us then endeavor to pursue "the even tenor of our way" without giving way to the obsession that we must inflict our feelings upon our associates. We may in this way maintain a mental balance that shall stand us in good stead in time of stress.
The autumnal tendency to melancholy is recognized by Thoreau. The characteristic suggestion of this nature-lover is that the melancholic go to the woods and study thesymplocarpus foetidus(skunk cabbage), whose English name savors of contempt, but whose courage is such that it is already in the autumn jauntily thrusting forth its buds for the coming year.
An admirable reflection for the victim of moods, as for many another, is the old saying in which Abraham Lincoln is said to have taken peculiar comfort, namely, "This also will pass."
Paradise Lost.
We have reviewed the various phases of worry and the elements out of which worry is assembled. It has been seen that exaggerated self-consciousness blocks effort through fear of criticism, ridicule or comment. The insistent habit of mind in the worrier has been found to permeate the content of thought, and unfavorably to influence action. The fact has been pointed out that the obsession to do the right thing may be carried so far as to produce querulous doubt and chronic indecision—hence worry.
It has been pointed out that over-anxiety on the score of health (hypochondria) aggravates existing symptoms, and itself develops symptoms; that these symptoms in turn increase the solicitude which gave them birth. Attention has been called to the influence of over-anxious and fretful days in precluding the restful state of mind that favors sleep, and to the influence of the loss of sleep upon the anxieties of the following day; in other words, worry prevents sleep, and inability to sleep adds to worry.
We have seen that doubts of fitness lead to unfitness, and that the worry of such doubts, combined with futile regrets for the past and forebodings for the future, hamper the mind which should be cleared for present action.
The injurious effect upon the nervous system of these faulty mental states has been emphasized, together with their influence as potent underlying causes of so-called nervous prostration, preparing the worrier for breakdown from an amount of work which, if undertaken with tranquil mind, could have been accomplished with comparative ease.
The question is, will the possessor of these faulty mental tendencies grasp the importance of giving thought to the training that shall free him from the incubus? He certainly has the intelligence, for it is among the intelligent that these states are mostly found; he certainly has the will-power, for lack of will-power is not a failing of the obsessed. The question is, can he bring himself to make, at the suggestion of another, a fundamental change of attitude, and will he take these suggestions on faith, though many seem trivial, others, perhaps, unreasonable, and will he at least give them a trial? I hope so.
In the next sections will be summed up such commonplace and simple suggestions as may aid emergence from the maze of worry. Many of the suggestions have been scattered through preceding sections. The worrier and folly-doubter is more likely to be benefited by trying them than by arguing about them, and it is within the realms of possibility that some may come to realize the truth of the paradox that he who loses himself shall find himself.
"Beware! yet once again beware!Ere round thy inexperienced mind,With voice and semblance falsely fair,A chain Thessalian magic bind,—"
Thomas Love Peacock.
A friend of mine has a highbred Boston terrier named "Betty." Betty is a bundle of nerves, has a well-developed "New-England Conscience," and among other deviative (not degenerative) signs is possessed of an insatiate desire to climb trees. More than once I have watched her frantic efforts to achieve this end, and she really almost succeeds—at least she can reach a higher point on the trunk of a tree than any other dog of her size I know—say six feet; if the bark is rough, perhaps seven feet would not be an overestimate. Her attempts are unremitting—once the frenzy is on it is with the greatest difficulty that she can be separated, panting and exhausted, from her task.
Betty's case furnishes an illustration of an inborn tendency, fostered neither by precept nor example, persistently to attempt the impossible, and to fret and fume when forced to discontinue. Some children are by inheritance similarly endowed. Imagine Betty a child. It is safe to assume that the mental trait which prompts this expenditure of tireless and misdirected energy has sifted down through her ancestry; the chances are, of course, against its having skipped the generation immediately preceding; in other words, one or both her parents are probably obsessive. It follows almost as a matter of course that the "indomitable will" of the child is viewed with pride by the parent. Instead of being kept within reasonable bounds, and directed into proper channels, it is encouraged in every direction, and fostered by every available means. Prominent among the incentives to renewed activity furnished by the solicitous parent, possibly by the undiscriminating teacher, will be found such precepts as: "In the bright lexicon of youth there's no such word as fail," "Never give up the ship," "Never say die," "There's always room at the top."
Excellent maxims these, for the average child, particularly for the child who is under average as regards ambition to excel. But what of their effect upon the already over-conscientious and self-exacting child? Simply to tighten fetters which should rather be relaxed.
Life becomes a serious problem to a child of this kind at a much earlier age than is generally realized. I have been surprised to learn at what tender years such children have been borne down by a weight of self-imposed responsibility quite as heavy as can burden an adult, without the power of the adult to carry it. Such, for example, are anxieties regarding the health or the financial status of the parents, matters freely discussed without a thought that the child will make these cares his own.
I realize that this line of thought will seem to some revolutionary. A friend to whom I submitted the proposition that it did harm rather than good to encourage a child of this kind to attempt the impossible answered, "Nothing is impossible," and he said it as if he more than half believed it. Here we have the ambitious maxim challenging truth itself. It is certainly not impossible that Mozart wrote a difficult concerto at the age of five; nor is it impossible that, in precocious children of a different type, worry from failure to accomplish the desired may cause profound despair productive of disastrous results.
Nor are such children either geniuses or freaks—they are merely inheritors of the "New England Conscience," so named, I suppose, because the trait has multiplied in this section more rapidly even than the furniture and fittings of the Mayflower. Without underrating the sterling qualities of the devoted band who founded this community it may safely be suggested that neither the effectiveness nor the staying qualities of their descendants will be lessened by a certain modification of the querulous insistence which dominates the overtrained adult in the rearing of the nervously precocious child.
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 oflaissez-faire, and tend to produce indifference; but the worry against which these efforts are directed is a state ofunduesolicitude,—duesolicitude 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.
"Fads may be said to constitute a perfect mental antitoxin for the poison generated by cerebral acuity."
Courtney.
There is nothing occult in the suggestion that the worrier cultivate a fad. Its object is to interest him in something outside of himself and of the monotony of his accustomed round. If it seems to him too much trouble to enter upon the details of the fad there is all the more reason for freeing himself from such mental inertia.
How shall we set to work to acquire a fad, without special opportunity or education, and with but little time at our disposal? Suppose we take the study of botany as an illustration, not necessitating class instruction. This useful study may be made also a charming fad, and one not beneath the notice of so learned and busy a man as Sir Francis Bacon, who found time and inclination to write an essay "Of Gardens," in which he mentions by name and shows intimate acquaintance with, over one hundred distinct varieties of plant life.
Sir John Lubbock (the Right Honourable Lord Avebury) in "The Pleasures of Life," says:
"The botanist, on the contrary—nay, I will not say the botanist, but one with even a slight knowledge of that delightful science—when he goes out into the woods, or out into one of those fairy forests which we call fields, finds himself welcomed by a glad company of friends, every one with something interesting to tell."
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 theBladder 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 friendso-and-sowhom 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.
This is the most desultory way possible of cultivating the fad. One may go a step further and transplant the wild flowers and the weeds. A busy and successful professional friend of mine, besides having a cabinet shop in his stable, finds (or makes) time to go to the woods with his trowel. He has quite a wild-flower bank in his garden. I cannot give definite directions as to their setting out—I think he just throws them down anywhere—a fair percentage seem to thrive,—I can remember the larger bur-marigold, the red and white bane-berry, rattlesnake-weed, rattlesnake-plantain, blood root, live-for-ever, wood betony, pale corydalis, and fern-leaved foxglove, and there are many more.
Mushrooms and ferns offer fertile fields for special study. If the worrier has an altruistic turn he will find satisfaction in bestowing duplicates upon his friends, thus still further externalizing his interests. He will be surprised to find how many things there are in the world that he never noticed.
Whether our tastes lead us in the direction of photography, pottery, mechanics, collecting china, books and old furniture, of philosophy or a foreign language, we need not aim to pursue these avocations too profoundly. We must not compare our acquisitions with those of the savant or the skilled laborer, but must console ourselves with the reflection that we at least know more, or can do more, than yesterday. If our fads, now and then, make us do something that gives us a little trouble, so much the better, if it is only to go to the library for a book,—the worrier whose idea of rest and recuperation is to remain forever glued to an easy-chair is indeed to be pitied.
Collecting old prints, stamps, and coins, is by no means a waste of time. Fads of this nature offer the additional inducement of an asset which may serve, in a material way, to banish worry in time of stress. To reap the full advantage of the collection fads one should take pains to acquire a knowledge of the geography and history with which they are associated. Few are so unfortunately placed that they have no access to information on these subjects. The encyclopædia, at least, is within general reach, though rarely consulted by those who most need its aid.
Suppose one takes up history for an indoor fad. How shall he start in? Since he pursues this study only as a fad, he can commence almost anywhere. Let him decide to become familiar with the fifteenth century. The first step is to familiarize himself with the principal rulers and the principal battles of that time. Suppose he spends half an hour every evening upon the life of one or another ruler, as given in the encyclopædia or elsewhere. If he is sufficiently inventive to construct a pictorial or other plan in which to give each his place, so much the better. Having thus constructed a framework he can begin to fill in the details, and now the study begins to interest him. At any public library he can find a catalogue of historical fiction arranged according to centuries. Under the fifteenth century he will find Quentin Durward, The Broad Arrow, Anne of Geierstein, The Cloister and the Hearth, Every Inch a King, Marietta, The Dove in the Eagle's Nest, and other standard works, all of which he may have read before, but every page of which will have for him a new interest since he can now place the characters, appreciate the customs, and form a consistent picture of what was doing in different countries at this time.
The next step is to acquire, in the same way, equal familiarity with the preceding and succeeding centuries, particularly with the interrelations of the different countries, old and new.
The reader who has followed to this point will need no further hint. If he continues as he has begun, he will be surprised to find how soon he will be able to instruct, on one subject at least, the college graduate, unless that graduate has happily continued as a fad what he once perfunctorily acquired.
Another way of commencing this study, and the one, I confess, which appeals more to me, is first to establish a framework which shall cover a long period of time, then study special epochs. An interesting way to start this method is to purchase Creasy's "Decisive Battles of the World," and familiarize one's self with its contents. This will furnish pegs on which to hang further items of information, and will impart a running familiarity with different nations involved in war from the time of the supremacy of Greece, down to the battle of Manila, in the recent edition,—in earlier editions to the time of Napoleon.
The only absolutely essential reference book for this study is Ploetz's "Epitome of Universal History."
To make this fad interesting, the mere commitment to memory of facts and dates will not suffice. Items of history thus acquired will inevitably fade. The conscientious but ill-advised student who attempts to commit the "Epitome" to memory will fall by the way-side. Time is not wasted in dwelling sufficiently long on one subject to feel a sense of ownership in it, and there is opportunity for the exercise of individual ingenuity in devising means to accomplish this end. If one has the knack, for example, of writing nonsense verse (and this is a talent all too easy of cultivation) it will aid him in fixing by rhyme names and dates otherwise difficult to master, thus:
"Ten sixty-six is a date you must fix;" or "Drake was not late in fifteen eighty-eight."
The study of music, history, trees, flowers, or birds doubtless seems of trivial interest to one who occupies his leisure hours with such weighty problems as figuring out how rich he would have been to-day if he had bought Bell Telephone at 15, but such study is far more restful, and in the long run quite as useful for the over-busy man.
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 thepinus ponderosa.
Courtney says "to all this will undoubtedly be objected the plea of lack of time. The answer to arguments formed on such flimsy basis is that all the time which is spent in preparing one's self as a candidate for a sanitarium is like the proverbial edged tool in the hands of children and fools."
A little time spent in such simple pursuits as I have indicated, and a few weeks' vacationbefore exhaustion appears, may prevent a year's enforced abstinence from work on account of nervous invalidism. I am tempted here to say "A stitch in time saves nine," but adages are sometimes dangerous. Thus the adage, "If you want a thing well done you must do it yourself," has caused many a business and professional man to burden himself with details which in the long run he might better have intrusted to subordinates, even at the risk of an occasional blunder.
It is not wise to specialize too much in the pursuit of the fad. Suppose the busy man, having conceded the value of some out-of-door study, decides that he will learn the lumber industry, but take no interest in the shade trees. He will not materially broaden his interests in this way. He will rather add to his burdens another business. If he applies to this new business the same conscientious methods which are wearing him out in his present one, the value of the fad is gone, the new study has done him more harm than good, and when on his vacation, unless there is a sawmill in the neighborhood, he finds himself stranded with only worry for company. Similarly, if the study of history is taken up in the way a fad should be taken up, anything in the way of a book will now interest the worrier, for hardly a book worth reading fails to contain either a bit of travel, geography, biography, law, or something on manners and customs.
Permanent freedom from worry involves a change in one's whole view of life and method of thought. But the means by which introspection may betemporarilyalleviated are by no means to be despised. Among these comes the pursuit of the golf-ball. Many a business and professional man who thinks he has no time for golf can easily escape for an hour's play at the end of the day, twice a week, and in the long run it will prove to be time well expended. In point of fact, most are hindered rather by the notion that it is not worth while to visit the links unless one can play eighteen holes, or that it is not worth while to take up the game at all unless one can excel. But the exercise is the same, and the air equally bracing whether we win or lose; the shower-bath will refresh us just the same whether we have played nine holes or twenty-seven.
The automobile ride, the drive, and, best of all, the ride on horseback, will often serve to banish the vapors. Many neglect these methods, not from lack of time or money, but from indisposition.
A busy professional man recently assured me that he had renewed his youth by going three times a week to the gymnasium and joining the "old man's class." Here is an opportunity open to practically everyone; it is a desirable practice if continued. The drawback is the lack of incentive when the novelty has passed. Such incentive is furnished by the fad, in the satisfaction of gaining new knowledge and broadening the thought-associations.
Submit to what is unavoidable, banish the impossible from the mind, and look around for some new object of interest in life.
Goethe.
In the treatment of faulty mental habits the chief reliance is the training of the mind; physical measures are merely supplementary. This fact has always been recognized in a general way. The need of such training was emphasized by Epictetus thus:
"Not to be disappointed of our desire, nor incur our aversion. To this ought our training be directed. For without vigorous and steady training, it is not possible to preserve our desire undisappointed and our aversion unincurred."
But there has always been an undercurrent of dissatisfaction with purely mental treatment, and a desire for the drug, which has more than once, doubtless, been prescribed for the purpose of "suggestion" only.
The movement for psychic treatment on scientific principles, of faulty mental disorders, not of organic nature, is well under way. That the American profession takes an active interest in this movement is shown by the exhaustive paper on psycho-therapy by Dr. E. W. Taylor, recently read at a combined meeting held in Boston and discussed by such representative neurologists as Drs. Mills, Dercum, J. K. Mitchell, and Sinkler, of Philadelphia; Drs. Dana, Sachs, Collins, Hunt, Meacham, and Jelliffe, of New York; Dr. White of Washington, and Drs. Putnam and Prince, of Boston.
Such faulty mental habits as worry and obsession, doubting folly, and hypochondria, are no more amenable to physical treatment than the habit of swearing, or of over-indulgence in food and drink. Even the psychic treatment, by another, of such disorders, as of such habits, labors under the disadvantage that all attempts to influence another by exhortation, ridicule, or reproach are met by active or passive resistance on the part of the individual toward whom these efforts are directed. A conscientious resolve on the part of the individual himself, whether started by a casual hint or by a new line of thought, is often more effective than any amount of outside pressure, however well directed.
It is my hope and belief that the over-solicitous individual will be influenced by reading these descriptions to adopt, of his own initiative, some of these suggestions. His most striking peculiarity is his conviction that he cannot take the chances others do, that the criticisms he receives are peculiarly annoying, and that his sources of worry are something set apart from the experience of ordinary mortals. This conviction leads him to meet argument by argument, reproach and ridicule by indignant protest or brooding silence. The perusal of these sections may lead him to alter his ideals. Suggestions for home treatment have been scattered through the various pages; it only remains to sum them up.
We have traced worry back to exaggerated self-consciousness and obsession; it is against these two faulty tendencies that training may be directed.
The first step is the initiation of a new attitude, namely, the commonplace. The establishment of this attitude involves the sacrifice of self-love, and of the melancholy pleasure of playing the martyr. The oversensitive individual must recognize the fact that if people do not want him round it may be because he inflicts hisegotoo obtrusively upon his associates. He must realize that others are more interested in their own affairs than in his, and that however cutting their comments and unjust their criticisms, and however deeply these may sink into his soul, they are only passing incidents with them.
He must realize that if two people whisper they are not necessarily whispering about him, and if they are it is of no consequence, and merely shows their lack of breeding. On public occasions he must remember that others are thinking of themselves, or of the subject in hand, quite as much as they are of him and how he behaves. He must realize that even if he does something foolish it will only make a passing impression on others, and that they will like him none the less for it.
He must practice externalizing his thoughts. If criticised, he must ask himself whether the criticism is just or unjust. If just, he must learn to accept and act upon it; if unjust, he must learn to classify the critic, as unreasonable, thoughtless, or ill-natured, place him in the appropriate mental compartment, throw the criticism into the intellectual waste-basket, and proceed upon his way. This practice, difficult at first, will, if assiduously cultivated, become more and more automatic, and will materially modify a fruitful source of worry.
The next step is to practice the control of the dominating impulses (obsessions). If one finds himself impelled continually to drum, or walk the floor, he will find the habit cannot be dropped at once, but if he can refrain from it for a few moments once or twice in the day, no matter how lost he feels without it, and sit for a few minutes relaxed and motionless, the intervals can be gradually increased. Even the chronic doubter may appreciate the fact that this practice aids in preparing one for taking and keeping, at night, the quiet and immobile position which favors sleep. The bearing of this training upon worry may not be immediately obvious, but if one cannot overcome these simple physical compulsions he will find it still harder to overcome the doubts, the fears, and the scruples which underlie his worry.
It is hard to give up the idea that we are so peculiarly constituted that it produces a special disgust in our case if another constantly clears his throat, and a peculiar annoyance if he rocks. It is difficult to relinquish the belief that, however callous others may be, our nervous system is so delicately adjusted that we cannot work when others make unnecessary noise, and we cannot sleep if a clock ticks in our hearing. But if one persistently cultivates the commonplace, he will at last find himself seeking instead of avoiding the objects of his former torture, merely to exercise his new-found mastery of himself, and to realize that "He that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a city."
It is the imperative duty of every sufferer from doubting folly to say to himself, "I will perform this act once with my whole attention, then leave it and turn my mind in other channels before I have dulled my perception by repetition."
If one is prone to chronic indecision, he must remind himself that it is better to do the wrong thing with single mind, than to work himself into a frenzy of anxious doubt. In case the choice is not an important one, he must learn topounceupon either task, and waste no further time. If the doubt concerns an important matter, he must learn to devote only that attention to the matter which is commensurate with its importance, then decide it one way or the other, realizing that it is better to make a mistake, even in an important matter than to worry one's self into utter helplessness by conflicting emotions.
If insistent fear attacks one, he must remind himself that the worst that can happen to him is not so bad as the state of the chronic coward and the hypochondriac. He must practice taking the chances that others do, and must learn to go through the dreaded experiences, not with his nervous system stimulated into undue tension, but with body and mind relaxed by such considerations as I have indicated.
The maxim is a useful aid in suggestion, but it should be carefully selected. Most children seem to be brought up on maxims which presuppose mental deficiency and constitutional carelessness. But the naturally over-thoughtful and too-conscientious child, the child to whom applies Sir John Lubbock's observation that the term "happy childhood" is sometimes a misnomer, needs no admonition to "Try, try again," and to "Never weary of well doing."
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!"
Much unintentional self-suggestion is conveyed in one's habitual method of expressing his attitude toward annoyances, thus: "That simply drives me wild." Suppose, now, one should try a little substitution; for example: