Right And Wrong Thinking And Their Results
	The Worry Habit <  Previous Contents Next  >

He who would stop discordant thinking must banish from his mind all anxiety for the future and "let the dead past bury its dead," for anxiety about the future is only another name for worry, and regret for things done in the past is its twin sister; both are distinctly antagonistic to all harmonious thinking.

In the literal meaning of the word there is a strong suggestion of the character and attendant conditions of the mental state which it designates. One of its old Anglo-Saxon ancestors, perhaps a grandparent, was used to indicate harm, while another was the name for a wolf, and in Iceland it was the name for an accused person. In our own times the word in its literalness means to choke, to suffocate, to bite at or tear with the teeth as dogs do when fighting, or when "worrying" rats or other small animals.

Metaphorically the word indicates a mental state fully the equivalent of the physical conditions included in its more literal meaning. In its milder phases it is disturbing, harassing, and harmful; while with its intenser forms it does indeed seize its victim by the throat, as a dog or a wolf might, and choke, and suffocate, and tear with its teeth. If we were to call worry into our consciousness as a person, its aspect would be so terrible that men would flee from it in horror.

The woman who said she "spent half her time doing things and the other half worrying because she had done them," belongs to a very numerous and a very uncomfortable family. To worry over, or regret, what is past is like rethreshing old straw. Time so spent is worse than wasted, for it does not change anything, it occupies valuable time, and no form of useful activity drains the life energies as this mental torture does. It robs one of sleep, sours the disposition, warps the judgment, and makes the mind weak and vacillating.

This is true of every form of anxiety or worry. It is a waste of strength, complete destruction of peace of mind, and one of the most disturbing elements which can invade a household. One individual with the worry habit can poison the atmosphere for all with whom he is associated, for mental discord is easily communicated, and others are made more or less miserable either by discordant sympathy or by condemnation.

Thus the seed is multiplied, for to condemn another or to give discordant sympathy by being "sorry for him" is to fall into the same kind of an error that he himself has committed. This contagious thinking should stop in its very beginning. That another is mentally disturbed is no excuse for one's own discordant thinking, and to yield to such an influence injures all concerned. As the weaver's shuttle passes from side to side of the loom, so thoughts pass from one to another, entangling many in their meshes and weaving the web of life in brightness or in gloom according as the thoughts are.

Anxiety and worry about the future have their beginning in uncertainty and doubt, and these soon develop into expectancy of evil with manifold visions of things that never happen. Here is the place where effort for the destruction of worry should begin. For illustration: A friend is on a journey. There steals into the mind a thought of uncertainty whether he will reach his destination and return in safety. Right here in this doubt is the parting of the ways. This first discordant thought, no matter how small, should be instantly dropped out of the mind as unreservedly as a stone may be dropped out of the hand. It can be done more easily right here at the outset than at any other point, and that will end all the trouble. If, instead of doing this, the doubt is allowed to continue and to expand, the discordant thoughts will increase to the same extent, and the discomfort will be exactly proportional.

Perhaps it occurs to the mind that accidents sometimes happen on the road. This thought increases the mental disturbance until finally the picture presents itself of some frightful affair once read about, and this is followed by a condition of worry which destroys all mental serenity and makes life miserable. It is useless to say to the worrier that his visions are entirely unreal. Probably he is aware of that fact, and yet he makes them as real to himself as any event that is passing, and his suffering is as actual and as harmful as any suffering.

This vice, for it is a vice, is so insidious in its approach, so positive in its assertions when it has once made a lodgment in the mind, and so persistent in its hold on its victim, that persuasion or entreaty from another is seldom of any avail. It is not enough to say to. the person obsessed that not one traveler in millions is ever injured, nor is it enough to say that his fears have no foundation save in his own imagination, and that he has brought all his suffering on himself. Such declarations to the con- firmed mental inebriate rouse indignation which seriously increases the discord, and he justifies him- self by asserting that he cannot help worrying.

He can help it if he will. By his own act, with which another cannot interfere, he can avoid all the misery which worrying would bring into his whole life, as well as the misery which he may inflict on the lives of others. There is no occasion for it out- side the victim's own mind. His own thinking and that alone creates the disturbance, it has no existence outside of his own thinking, and a change of his thinking can destroy it.

Not all at once can he do this, perhaps, but he can do it by persistent endeavor. Back at the parting of the ways, when the thought of uncertainty first entered his mind, he might have given his thinking a healthy and harmonious direction by stopping the discordant thoughts which had been suggested by uncertainty and doubt.

He may not have noticed the little thought which began the series, or if he did, he probably considered it too trivial to be worthy of any attention, still less of any effort; yet it was just the kind of thinking which ought always to be terminated on the instant. To do that is all that is needed; and that done, the terrors which a fertile imagination might conjure up will never present themselves. It matters not whether it is worry about future possibilities or anxiety over things which have passed; at its very beginning is the place to assert one's right to be "kept in perfect peace."

Having decided that he cannot stop worrying, the victim makes no further effort, and the habit becomes more firmly established with each surrender to its wiles and its tortures until he becomes as completely subject to its control as any victim is to either the morphine or the drink habit. The sense of self-pity because his "sympathetic nature" makes his sufferings greater than those of others increases with the habit, and the mental discord goes on generating its poison in its victim beyond the ability of his system to expel it, developing finally into some sluggish disease. When death follows no one calls it suicide, but it surely belongs to that class.

Worry has killed more people than all the hard work that was ever done. Booker Washington very correctly and soberly set forth its results in a single sentence: "I think I am learning more and more each year that all worry consumes, and to no purpose, just so much physical and mental strength that otherwise might be given to effective work."' Hard work with a peaceful, harmonious mind will never kill any one; and when it is accompanied by serenity, hope, and joy, it builds up the system and prolongs existence instead of shortening it; but worry kills, and not to stop it is slow but certain suicide as well as the destruction of much of the joy in the lives of one's best and closest friends. The victims all know the discomfort of it, yet in many cases their failure to stop the worrying comes from disinclination to make the necessary effort.

Whatever the incident or condition which sets the worry thought into activity, the two are as distinct as one pebble from another. The incident is wholly external to the person. The thinking and the thought are entirely within the person. The thinker may have no power over the incident, but he need not concern himself about that; if he will assert himself, he may have complete power over his own thinking, to stop it or to allow it to go on.

The sooner and the more fully one recognizes that it is not the incident, but one's own thinking, which causes the trouble the better for him, because it will make his work of reform far less difficult. His dominion over his own thinking may be absolute, therefore he may set in motion a train of thoughts entirely distinct from those first suggested by the incident, and he may drive away the whole discord- ant troop as completely as he would burglars from his house or dogs from his sheepfold.

If one would make a careful and comprehensive examination of the circumstances which provoke discordant thinking, strictly confining himself to this examination and excluding all inharmonious thoughts, he would gain a knowledge of its cause which would enable him to avoid such thinking under all similar circumstances. Such a course will also stimulate mental action, will be helpful to him in all his relations to external circumstances, will be healthful in its action upon his entire system, generate life-giving products instead of poisonous ones, and will give him strength to fulfill the duties of each hour as they arise. Once started in the right way, he may go on through his whole life with an ever increasing recognition of better possibilities and greater powers.

There are no variations in this course of procedure except as the object varies, or as the thinking and its duration vary. As in all mental conditions, though the victim may have assistance from another, yet the real effort must be made within himself, This mental discipline cannot be begun too soon, nor can it be exercised upon too insignificant conditions. As soon as the milder, incipient stages of the disease are observed the remedy should be un- hesitatingly applied with determination and vigor. It should be done in the same way if the disease has progressed into the more extreme conditions, and one must necessarily be one's own surgeon, cutting off the offending thoughts without the slightest hesitation until, by persistent repetition of the operation, he becomes his own master. Instead of paralyzing himself with the weak, self-indulgent thought that he cannot put out the worry, let him dismiss it as he would an unwelcome intruder into his privacy or an objectionable visitor to his home. Let him put up a sign over the entrance to his mind, "no loafers, beggars, nor thieves allowed here," and then relentlessly enforce the prohibition.

It will take a struggle at first, perhaps a square stand-up contest, perhaps a "seven years' war," as was that of our Revolution when the colonies won their freedom, but it will be worth the effort, however great that may be. To the person who excludes worry from his mind and destroys the mental habit the revolution will be more important than was that war to our nation. It means freedom, comfort, happiness, health, and the prolongation of life.

This training will do more than enable one to banish worry when it tries to invade the mind: it will establish such a mental condition that the discord will not begin, and the eggs that hatch the vultures of worry will never be laid. When the knowledge and practice of this method become universal, they will drive out all the "blue devils" that torment the imagination, exorcise all the "spiritual obsession" that was ever heard about, and prevent any further increase in the population of the insane asylums of the world.