Too great emphasis cannot be placed upon the physical ills that come
from worry. The body unconsciously reflects our mental states. A
fretful and worrying mother should never be allowed to suckle her
child, for she directly injures it by the poison secreted in her milk
by the disturbances caused in her body by the worry of her mind.
Among the many wonderfully good things said in his lifetime Henry Ward
Beecher never said a wiser and truer thing than that "it is not the
revolution which destroys the machinery, but the friction." Worry is
the friction that shatters the machine. Work, to the healthy body and
serene mind, is a joy, a blessing, a health-giving exercise, but to
the worried is a burden, a curse and a destroyer.
Go where you will, when you will, how you will, and you will find most
people worrying to a greater or lesser extent. Indeed so full has our
Western world become of worry that a harsh and complaining note is far
more prevalent than we are willing to believe, which is expressed in
a rude motto to be found hung on many an office, bedroom, library,
study, and laboratory wall which reads:
_Life is one Damn
Thing after Another_
[Note: this is outlined in a block.]
Those gifted with a sense of humor laugh at the motto; the very
serious frown at it and reprobate its apparent profanity, those who
see no humor in anything regard it with gloom, the careless with
assumed indifference, but in the minds of all, more or less latent or
subconscious, there is a recognition that there is "an awful lot of
truth in it."
Hence it will be seen that worry is by no means confined to the poor.
The well-to-do, the prosperous, and the rich, indeed, have far more to
worry about than the poor, and for one victim who suffers keenly from
worry among the poor, ten can be found among the rich who are its
abject victims.
It is worry that paints the lines of care on foreheads and cheeks that
should be smooth and beautiful; worry bows the shoulders, brings out
scowls and frowns where smiles and sweet greetings should exist. Worry
is the twister, the dwarfer, the poisoner, the murderer of joy, of
peace, of work, of happiness; the strangler, the burglar of life; the
phantom, the vampire, the ghost that scares, terrifies, fills with
dread. Yet he is a liar and a scoundrel, a villain and a coward, who
will turn and flee if fearlessly and courageously met and defied.
Instead of pampering and petting him, humoring and conciliating him,
meet him on his own ground. Defy him to do his worst. Flaunt him,
laugh at his threats, sneer and scoff at his pretensions, bid him do
his worst. Better be dead than under the dominion of such a tyrant.
And, my word for it, as soon as you take that attitude, he will flee
from you, nay, he will disappear as the mists fade away in the heat of
the noonday sum.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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