That \drives me wild.Nothing /
(but that).I can stand anything(at all).
(not) (this)I can sleep in position.(—-) (any)
The quieting effect is immediately perceptible.
Nor is the injurious effect of the explosive habit of speech limited to the person who indulges it. The other day a lady, apparently in no haste, sauntered into a station of the "Elevated" ahead of me, holding by the hand a small boy. The boy was enjoying himself immensely, gazing about him with the wide-awake, but calmly contemplative air peculiar to childhood. Suddenly the lady saw that a train was about to leave the station, and was seized by the not uncommon compulsion to take the last train instead of the next one. She hurried the boy across the platform only to meet the closed door of the departing train.
"Isn'tthatprovoking!" she exclaimed. And the boy began to whimper.
Although the main object of this book is to call attention to the mental rather than the physical treatment of these states, I cannot forbear reminding the reader of certain routine measures which facilitate the desired improvement in mental attitude.
It is well to start the day with a quick plunge in cold water, that is, in water of the natural temperature excepting in the cold season, when the extreme chill may be taken off to advantage. A brisk rub with rough towels should follow. One should proceed immediately from the warm bed to the bath, and should not first "cool off." A few setting-up exercises (bending the trunk forward and back, sidewise, and with a twist) may precede the bath, and a few simple arm exercises follow it. A few deep breaths will inevitably accompany these procedures. When one returns to his room he no longer notices the chill in the air, and he has made a start toward accustoming himself to, and really enjoying, lower temperatures than he fancied he could stand at all.
Every healthy adult should walk at least two miles daily in the open. We have been forced to readjust our ideas as to the distance even an elderly person can walk without harm since a pedestrian of sixty-nine has, without apparent injury, covered over one thousand miles, over ordinary roads, at an average of fifty miles a day.
The day's work should be started with the resolution that every task shall be taken up in its turn, without doubts and without forebodings, that bridges shall not be crossed until they are reached, that the vagaries of others shall amuse and interest, not distress us, and that we will live in the present, not in the past or the future. We must avoid undertaking too much, and whatever we do undertake we must try not to worry as to whether we shall succeed. This only prevents our succeeding. We should devote all our efforts to the task itself, and remember that even failure under these circumstances may be better than success at the expense of prolonged nervous agitation.
"Rest must be complete when taken and must balance the effort in work—rest meaning often some form of recreation as well as the passive rest of sleep. Economy of effort should be gained through normal concentration—that is, the power of erasing all previous impressions and allowing a subject to hold and carry us, by dropping every thought or effort that interferes with it, in muscle, nerve, and mind." (Annie Payson Call, "Power Through Repose.")
The over-scrupulous and methodical individual who can neither sleep nor take a vacation until all the affairs of his life are arranged must remind himself that this happy consummation will not be attained in his lifetime. It behooves him, therefore, if he is ever to sleep, or if he is ever to take a vacation, to do it now, nor need he postpone indefinitely
"That blessed moodIn which the burden of the mystery,In which the heavy and the weary weightOf all this unintelligible worldIs lightened."
Happiness and success in life do not depend on circumstances, but on ourselves.
Sir John Lubbock.
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."
One of the hardest obsessions to overcome is theundulyinsistent habit of mind regarding orderliness and cleanliness. It is not undue to desire and practice a reasonable degree of these virtues, but when it gives one a "fit" to see a picture slightly off the level, and drives one "wild" to see a speck of dust, it is time to modify the ideal. This is the frame of mind which encourages worry over trifles. If one really wishes to lessen worry he must cultivate a certain degree of tolerance for what does not square with his ideas, even if it does violence to a pet virtue.
The careful housekeeper may object that so long as she can regulate her household to her liking, the habit of orderliness, even though extreme, causes her no worry. But it is only the hermit housekeeper who can entirely control her household. And further, the possessor of the over-orderly temperament, whether applied to housekeeping, business, or play (if he ever plays), is bound sooner or later to impinge his ideas of orderliness upon the domain of other peoples' affairs, in which his wishes cannot be paramount. In this event, at least, he will experience a worry only to be allayed by learning to stand something he does not like.
Worry about the mental condition is disastrous. The habit should be cultivated of taking the mind for what it is, and using it, wasting no time in vain regrets that it is not nimbler or more profound. Just as the digestion is impeded by solicitude, so the working of the brain is hampered by using the energy in worry which should be devoted directly to the task in hand. Children frequently worry because their memory is poor. It should be explained to them that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred apparent lack of memory is only lack of attention, and they should be urged to cease distracting the attention by wandering in the fields of idle speculation or in making frantic leaps to surmount imaginary obstacles.
It is important for parents of morbidly sensitive and over-scrupulous children, with acute likes and dislikes, to discourage the tendency of the child to become more and more peculiar. Sensitive children are inclined to worry because they think others do not care for them or want them round. If such children can be led to take a bird's-eye view of themselves, they may be made to realize that others crave their society according as they are helpful, entertaining, sympathetic, or tactful, because they instil courage and give comfort. They should be urged, therefore, to cultivate these qualities instead of wasting their energy in tears and recriminations; and they should be encouraged to practice such of these traits as they can master instead of becoming moody in society, or withdrawing to brood in solitude, either of which errors may result in producing on the part of others a genuine dislike. In other words, teach them to avoid enforcing too far theiregoon themselves or their environment.
Parents must also remember that over-solicitous attention on their part is bound to react to the disadvantage of the child. The story is told of Phillips Brooks that, when a child, he put a newly sharpened pencil into his mouth further and further until it slipped down his throat. He asked his mother what would happen if anyone should swallow a pencil. She answered that she supposed it would kill him. Phillips kept silence, and his mother made no further inquiry.
This incident would indicate that Phillips Brooks had already, as a child, attained a mental equipoise which the average individual hardly achieves in a lifetime. The story appeals to me no less as evidence of self-control on the part of the mother; and I like to imagine that she suppressed the question a startled parent naturally would ask, realizing that no amount of worry would recall the pencil if he had swallowed it, and that nothing was to be gained by overturning the household, or by giving the boy an example of agitation sure to react to the detriment of the mind unfolding under her supervision. Unless, therefore, the facts of this story have become distorted by imagery, it shows exceptional heredity and unusual training.
Not every one can claim such heredity, and not every one can look back on such training; but it is not too much to say that every one can so direct his thoughts and so order his actions as gradually to attain a somewhat higher level of self-control than either his mental endowment or his early training would have promised. For mental training is no more limited to feats of memory, and to practice in the solution of difficult problems, than is physical training comprised in the lifting of heavy weights in harness. In fact, such exercises are always in danger of leaving the mental athlete intellectually muscle-bound, if I may use such an expression; whereas the kind of training I have in mind tends to establish mental poise, to improve the disposition, to fit the mind (and indirectly the body) better to meet the varied exigencies of daily life, and to help the individual to react in every way more comfortably to his surroundings.
I have only hinted at the detailed suggestions by which the worry habit and allied faulty mental tendencies may be combated. The obsessive who is able to alter his ideals and systematically pursue the line of thought here sketched will himself find other directions in which control can be exercised. It is true that no one is likely to reach any of the extreme degrees of incapacity we have considered unless he is naturally endowed with a mind predestined to unbalance. At the same time any of us who have a nervous temperament ever so slightly above the average of intensity will do well to check these tendencies as far as possible in their incipiency, realizing that no physical evil we may dread can be worse than the lot of the confirmed hypochondriac or the compulsively insane.
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 shuffledAnd fairly dealt, but still I got no hand.The morning came, but I with mind unruffledDid simply say, 'I do not understand.'"Life is a game of whist; from unseen sourcesThe 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."