Fear in its foreseeing character is termed worry. As a phase of
character, the liability to worry is of such importance that book
after book has dealt with the subject,--emphasizing the dangers,
the futility and cowardice of it. It is surely idle to tell
people not to worry who live continually on the brink of economic
disaster, or who are facing real danger. But there are types who
find in every possibility of injury a formidable threat, who are
thrown into anguish when they contemplate any evil, remote or
unlikely as it may be. The present and future are not faced with
courage or equanimity; they present themselves as a never-ending
series of threats; threat to health, to fortune, to family,
reputation, everything. Horace Fletcher called this type of
forethought "fear thought." Men and women, brave enough when face
to face with actualities, are cowards when confronting remote
possibilities. The housewife especially is one of these worriers,
and her mind has an affinity for the terrible. I have described
her elsewhere,[1] but she has her prototype among men.
[1] "The Nervous Housewife."
Fear of this type is an injury to the body and character both and
is one of the causes and effects of the widespread neurasthenia
of our day. For fear injures sleep, and this brings on fatigue
and fatigue breeds more fear, --a vicious circle indeed. Fear
disturbs digestion and the energy of the organism is thereby
lowered. The greatest damage by worry is done in the
hypochondriac, the worrier about health. Here, in addition to the
effects of fear, introspection and a minute attention to every
pain and ache demoralize the character, for the sufferer cannot
pay attention to anything else. He becomes selfish, ego-centric
and without the wholesome interest in life as an adventure. I
doubt if there is enough good in too minute a popular education
on disease and health preservation. Morbid attention to health
often results, an evil worse than sickness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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