There are men who are equally worried over their appearance. Their
hair is not growing properly, or their ears are not the proper shape,
or their ears are too large, or their hands are too rough, or their
complexion doesn't match the ties they like to wear, or some equally
foolish and nonsensical thing. Some wish to be taller, others not so
tall; quite an army seeks to be thinner and another of equal numbers
desires to be stouter; some wish they were blondes, and others that
they were brunettes. The result is that drug-stores, beauty-parlors,
and complexion specialists for men and women are kept busy all their
time, robbing poor, hard-working creatures of their earnings because
of insane worries that they are not appearing as well as they ought to
do.
Clothing is a perpetual source of worry to thousands. They must keep
up with the styles, the latest fashions, for to be "out of fashion,"
"a back number," gives them "a conniption fit." An out-of-date hat,
or shirt-waist, jacket, coat, skirt, or shoe humiliates and distresses
them more than would a violation of the moral law--provided it were
undetected.
To these, my worrying friends, I continually put the question: Is it
worth while? Is the game worth the shot? What do you gain for all
your worry? Rest and peace of mind? Alas, no! If the worry and effort
accomplished anything, I would be the last to deprecate it, but
observation and experience have taught me that _the more you yield
to these demons of vanity and worry, the more relentlessly they harry
you_. They veritably are demons that seize you by the throat and hang
on like grim death until they suffocate and strangle you.
Do you propose, therefore, any longer to submit? Are you wilfully and
knowingly going to allow yourself to remain within their grasp?
You have a remedy in your own hands. Kill your foolish vanity by
determining to accept yourself as you are. All the efforts in the
world will not make any changes worth while. Fix upon the habits of
dress, etc., that good sense tells you are reasonable and in accord
with your age, your position and your purse, and then follow them
regardless of the fashion or the prevailing style. You know as well as
I that, unless you are a near-millionaire, you cannot possibly keep
up with the many and various changes demanded by current fashion. Then
why worry yourself by trying? Why spend your small income upon the
unattainable, or upon that which, even if you could attain it, you
would find unsatisfying and incomplete?
In your case, worry is certainly the result of mental inoccupancy.
This is sometimes called "empty headedness," and while the term seems
somewhat harsh and rough, it is pretty near the truth. If you spent
one-tenth the amount of energy seeking to put something _into_ your
head that you spend worrying as to what you shall put _on_ your head,
and how to fix it up, your life would soon be far more different than
you can now conceive.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account