Quit Your Worrying! Part 1

Quit Your Worrying!

by George Wharton James.

JUST BE GLAD

BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY

_O heart of mine, we shouldn't worry so, What we have missed of calm we couldn't have, you know!_

_What we've met of stormy pain, And of sorrow's driving rain, We can better meet again, If it blow._

_We have erred in that dark hour, we have known, When the tear fell with the shower, all alone._

_Were not s.h.i.+ne and shower blent As the gracious Master meant?

Let us temper our content With His own._

_For we know not every morrow Can be sad; So forgetting all the sorrow We have had, Let us fold away our fears, And put by our foolish tears, And through all the coming years, Just be glad._

FOREWORD

Between twenty and thirty years ago, I became involved in a series of occurrences and conditions of so painful and distressing a character that for over six months I was unable to sleep more than one or two hours out of the twenty-four. In common parlance I was "worrying myself to death," when, mercifully, a total collapse of mind and body came. My physicians used the polite euphemism of "cerebral congestion"

to describe my state which, in reality, was one of temporary insanity, and it seemed almost hopeless that I should ever recover my health and poise. For several months I hovered between life and death, and my brain between reason and unreason.

In due time, however, both health and mental poise came back in reasonable measure, and I asked myself what would be the result if I returned to the condition of worry that culminated in the disaster.

This question and my endeavors at its solution led to the gaining of a degree of philosophy which materially changed my att.i.tude toward life.

Though some of the chief causes of my past worry were removed there were still enough adverse and untoward circ.u.mstances surrounding me to give me cause for worry, if I allowed myself to yield to it, so I concluded that my mind must positively and absolutely be prohibited from dwelling upon those things that seemed justification for worry.

And I determined to set before me the ideal of a life without worry.

How was it to be brought about?

At every fresh attack of the hara.s.sing demon I rebuked myself with the stern command, "Quit your Worrying." Little by little I succeeded in obeying my own orders. A measurable degree of serenity has since blessed my life. It has been no freer than other men's lives from the ordinary--and a few extraordinary--causes of worry, but I have learned the lesson. I have _Quit Worrying_. To help others to attain the same desirable and happy condition has been my aim in these pages.

It was with set purpose that I chose this t.i.tle. I might have selected "Don't Worry." But I knew that would fail to convey my princ.i.p.al thought to the casual observer of the t.i.tle. People _will_ worry, they _do_ worry. What they want to know and need to learn is how to quit worrying. This I have attempted herein to show, with the full knowledge, however, that no one person's recipe can infallibly be used by any other person--so that, in reality, all I have tried to do is to set forth the means I have followed to teach myself the delightful lesson of serenity, of freedom from worry, and thereby to suggest to receptive minds a way by which they may possibly attain the same desirable end.

It was the learned and wise Dr. Johnson who wrote:

He may be justly numbered amongst the benefactors of mankind, who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may easily be impressed on the memory, and taught by frequent recollection to recur habitually to the mind.

I have no desire to claim as original the t.i.tle used for these observations, but I do covet the joy of knowing that I have so impressed it upon the memory of thousands that by its constant recurrence it will aid in banis.h.i.+ng the monster, worry.

It is almost unavoidable that, in a practical treatise of this nature, there should be some repet.i.tion, both in description of worries and the remedies suggested. To the critical reader, however, let me say: Do not worry about this, for I am far more concerned to get my thought into the heads and hearts of my readers than I am to be esteemed a great writer. Let me help but one troubled soul to quit worrying and I will forego all the honors of the ages that might have come to me had I been an essayist of power. And I have repeated purposely, for I know that some thoughts have to knock again and again, ere they are admitted to the places where they are the most needed.

I have written strongly; perhaps some will think too strongly. These, however, must remember that I have written advisedly. I have been considering the subject for half or three parts of a life-time. I have studied men and women; carefully watched their lives; talked with them, and seen the lines worry has engraved on their faces. I have seen and felt the misery caused by their unnecessary worries. I have sat by the bedsides of people made chronic invalids by worry, and I have stood in the cells of maniacs driven insane by worry. Hence I hate it in all its forms, and have expressed myself only as the facts have justified.

Wherein I have sought to show how one might _Quit his Worrying_, these pages presuppose an earnest desire, a sincere purpose, on the part of the reader to attain that desirable end. There is no universal medicine which one can drink in six doses and thus be cured of his disease. I do not offer my book as a mental cure-all, or nostrum that, if swallowed whole, will cure in five days or ten. As I have tried to show, I conceive worry to be unnatural and totally unnecessary, because of its practical denial of what ought to be, and I believe may be, the fundamental basis of a man's life, viz., his perfect, abiding a.s.surance in the fatherly love of G.o.d. As little Pippa sang:

G.o.d's in his heaven, All's right with the world.

The only way, therefore, to lose our sense of worry is to get back to naturalness, to G.o.d, and learn the peace, joy, happiness, serenity, that come with practical trust in Him. With some people this change may come instantly; with others, more slowly. Personally I have had to learn slowly, "line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, there a little." And I would caution my readers not to expect too much all at once. But I am fully convinced that as faith, trust, and naturalness grow, worry will cease, will slough off, like the dead skin of the serpent, and leave those once bound by it free from its malign influence. Who cannot see and feel that such a consummation is devoutly to be wished, worth working and earnestly striving for?

If I help a few I shall be more than repaid, if many, my heart will rejoice.

[Signed: George Wharton James]

Pasadena, Calif. _February_, 1916.

QUIT YOUR WORRYING!

CHAPTER I

THE CURSE OF WORRY

Of how many persons can it truthfully be said they never worry, they are perfectly happy, contented, serene? It would be interesting if each of my readers were to recall his acquaintances and friends, think over their condition in this regard, and then report to me the result.

What a budget of worried persons I should have to catalogue, and alas, I am afraid, how few of the serene would there be named. When John Burroughs wrote his immortal poem, _Waiting_, he struck a deeper note than he dreamed of, and the reason it made so tremendous an impression upon the English-speaking world was that it was a new note to them. It opened up a vision they had not before contemplated. Let me quote it here in full:

Serene I fold my hands and wait, Nor care for wind, or tide or sea; I rave no more 'gainst time or fate, For lo! my own shall come to me.

I stay my haste, I make delays, For what avails this eager pace?

I stand amid the eternal ways, And what is mine shall know my face.

Asleep, awake, by night or day, The friends I seek are seeking me, No wind can drive my bark astray, Nor change the tide of destiny.

What matter if I stand alone?

I wait with joy the coming years; My heart shall reap where it has sown, And garner up its fruit of tears.

The waters know their own and draw The brook that springs in yonder height, So flows the good with equal law Unto the soul of pure delight.

The stars come nightly to the sky; The tidal wave unto the sea; Nor time, nor s.p.a.ce, nor deep, nor high Can keep my own away from me.

I have been wonderfully struck by the fact that in studying the Upanishads, and other sacred books of the East, there is practically no reference to the kind of worry that is the bane and curse of our Occidental world. In conversation with the learned men of the Orient I find this same delightful fact. Indeed they have no word in their languages to express our idea of fretful worry. Worry is a purely Western product, the outgrowth of our materialism, our eager striving after place and position, power and wealth, our determination to be housed, clothed, and jeweled as well as our neighbors, and a little better if possible; in fact, it comes from our failure to know that life is spiritual not material; that all these outward things are the mere "pa.s.sing show," the tinsel, the gawds, the tissue-paper, the blue and red lights of the theater, the painted scenery, the mock heroes and heroines of the stage, rather than the real settings of the real life of real men and women. What does the inventor, who knows that his invention will help his fellows, care about the newest dance, or the latest style in ties, gloves or shoes; what does the woman whose heart and brain are completely engaged in relieving suffering care if she is not familiar with the latest novel, or the latest fas.h.i.+ons in flounced pantalettes? Life is real, life is earnest, and this does not mean unduly solemn and somber, but that it deals with the real things rather than the paper-flower shows of the stage and the imaginary things of so-called society.

It is the fas.h.i.+on of our active, aggressive, material, Occidental civilization to sneer and scoff at the quiet, pa.s.sive, and less material civilization of the Orient. We despise--that is, the unthinking majority do--the studious, contemplative Oriental. We believe in being "up and doing." But in this one particular of worry we have much to learn from the Oriental. If happiness and a large content be a laudable aim of life how far are we--the occidental world--succeeding in attaining it? Few there be who are content, and, as I have already suggested few there be who are free from worry. On the other hand while active happiness may be somewhat scarce in India, a large content is not uncommon, and worry, as we Westerners understand it, is almost unknown. Hence we need to find the happy mean between the material activity of our own civilization, and the mental pa.s.sivity of that of the Orientals. Therein will be found the calm serenity of an active mind, the reasonable acceptance of things as they are because we know they are good, the restfulness that comes from the a.s.surance that "all things work together for _Good_ to them that love G.o.d."

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?