That worry is a curse no intelligent observer of life will deny. It
has hindered millions from progressing, and never benefited a soul. It
occupies the mind with that which is injurious and thus keeps out
the things that might benefit and bless. It is an active and real
manifestation of the fable of the man who placed the frozen asp in his
bosom. As he warmed it back to life the reptile turned and fatally bit
his benefactor. Worry is as a dangerous, injurious book, the reading
of which not only takes up the time that might have been spent in
reading a good, instructive, and helpful book, but, at the same time,
poisons the mind of the reader, corrupts his soul with evil images,
and sets his feet on the pathway to destruction.
Why is it that creatures endowed with reason distress themselves and
everyone around them by worrying? It might seem reasonable for the
wild creatures of the wood--animals without reason--to worry as to how
they should secure their food, and live safely with wilder animals
and men seeking their blood and hunting them; but that men and women,
endued with the power of thought, capable of seeing the why and
wherefore of things, should worry, is one of the strange and peculiar
evidences that our so-called civilization is not all that it ought to
be. The wild Indian of the desert, forest, or canyon seldom, if ever,
worries. He is too great a natural philosopher to be engaged in so
foolish and unnecessary a business. He has a better practical system
of life than has his white and civilized (!) brother who worries, for
he says: Change what can be changed; bear the unchangeable without
a murmur. With this philosophy he braves the wind and the rain, the
sand, and the storm, the extremes of heat and cold, the plethora of a
good harvest or the famine of a drought. If he complains it is within
himself; and if he whines and whimpers no one ever hears him. His
face may become a little more stern under the higher pressure; he may
tighten his waist belt a hole or two to stifle the complaints of his
empty stomach, but his voice loses no note of its cheeriness and his
smile none of its sweet serenity.
Why should the rude and brutal (!) savage be thus, while the cultured,
educated, refined man and woman of civilization worry wrinkles into
their faces, gray hairs upon their heads, querelousness into their
voices and bitterness into their hearts?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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