This form of over-solicitude is peculiarly liable to attack those in whose hands are important affairs affecting the finances, the lives, or the health of others. I have known more than one case of the abandonment of a chosen occupation on account of the constant anxiety entailed by doubts of this nature. Nor are these doubts limited to the question whether one has done or left undone some particular act. An equally insistent doubt is that regarding one's general fitness for the undertaking. _The doubter may spend upon this question more time than it would take to acquire the needed facility and experience_. Some one has said there are two things that no one should worry about: first, the thing that can't be helped; second, the thing that can. This is peculiarly true of the former. Reflection upon the past is wise; solicitude concerning it is an anachronism. Suppose one has accepted a certain position and finds himself in doubt of his fitness for that position. Nothing can be more important than for him to decide upon his next line of conduct. Shall he resign or continue? Is he fit for the position, or, if not, can he acquire the fitness without detriment to the office? These are legitimate doubts. But the doubter who finds himself in this predicament adds to these legitimate doubts the question, "Ought I to have accepted the office?" This is the doubt he must learn to eliminate. He must remind himself that he has accepted the position, whether rightly or wrongly, and that the acceptance is ancient history. The question what shall he do next is sufficiently weighty to occupy all his attention without loading his mind with anxious doubts regarding the irrevocable past. Suppose, in fact, the doubter has made a mistake; how shall he banish the worry? By reminding himself that others have made mistakes, why should not he, and that it is somewhat egotistic on his part to insist that, whatever others may do, _he_ must do everything right. If this line of reasoning fails to console him, let him think of the greater mistakes he might have made. A financial magnate was once asked how he succeeded in keeping his mind free from worry. He replied, by contemplating the two worst things that could happen to him: losing all his property and going to jail. He had learned the lesson that _one thought can be driven out only by another_. With regard to immediate doubts. If the over-scrupulous business or professional man, worn out after an exacting day's work, will stop and reflect, he will realize that much of his exhaustion is due to his having filled the day with such doubts as whether he is doing the wrong thing, or the right thing at the wrong time, whether he or someone else will miss an appointment or fail to meet obligations, and whether he or his assistants may make blunders.