Most of us are foolish children, afraid of our shadows, so handicapped in a thousand ways that we can not get efficiency into our life work.
A man who is filled with fear is not a real man. He is a puppet, a mannikin, an apology of a man.
Quit fearing things that may never happen, just as you would quit any bad practise which has caused you suffering. Fill your mind with courage, hope, and confidence.
Do not wait until fear thoughts become intrenched in your mind and your imagination. Do not dwell upon them. Apply the antidote instantly, and the enemies will flee. There is no fear so great or intrenched so deeply in the mind that it can not be neutralized or entirely eradicated by its opposite. The opposite suggestion will kill it.
Once Dr. Chalmers was riding on a stage-coach beside the driver, and he noticed that John kept hitting the off leader a severe crack with his whip. When he asked him why he did this, John answered: "Away yonder there is a white stone; that off leader is afraid of that stone; so by the crack of my whip and the pain in his legs I want to get his mind off from it." Dr. Chalmers went home, elaborated the idea, and wrote "The Expulsive Power of a New Affection." You must drive out fear by putting a new idea into the mind.
Fear, in any of its expressions, like worry or anxiety, can not live an instant in your mind in the presence of the opposite thought, the image of courage, fearlessness, confidence, hope, self-a.s.surance, self-reliance. Fear is a consciousness of weakness. It is only when you doubt your ability to cope with the thing you dread that fear is possible. Fear of disease, even, comes from a consciousness that you will not be able to successfully combat it.
During an epidemic of a dreaded contagious disease, people who are especially susceptible and full of fear become panic-stricken through the c.u.mulative effect of hearing the subject talked about and discussed on every hand and the vivid pictures which come from reading the newspapers. Their minds (as in the case of yellow fever) become full of images of the disease, of its symptoms--black vomit, delirium,--and of death, mourning, and funerals.
If you never accomplish anything else in life, get rid of worry. There are no greater enemies of harmony than little anxieties and petty cares. Do not flies aggravate a nervous horse more than his work? Do not little naggings, constantly touching him with the whip, or jerking at the reins, fret and worry him much more than the labor of drawing the carriage?
It is the little pin-p.r.i.c.ks, the petty annoyances of our everyday life, that mar our comfort and happiness and rob us of more strength than the great troubles which we nerve ourselves to meet. It is the perpetual scolding and fault-finding of an irritable man or woman which ruins the entire peace and happiness of many a home.
The most deplorable waste of energy in human life is caused by the fatal habit of antic.i.p.ating evil, of fearing what the future has in store for us, and under no circ.u.mstances can the fear or worry be justified by the situation, for it is always an imaginary one, utterly groundless and without foundation.
What we fear is invariably something that has not yet happened. It does not exist; hence is not a reality. If you are actually suffering from a disease you have feared, then fear only aggravates every painful feature of your illness and makes its fatal issue more probable.
The fear habit shortens life, for it impairs all the physiological processes. Its power is shown by the fact that it actually changes the chemical composition of the secretions of the body. Fear victims not only age prematurely but they also die prematurely. All work done when one is suffering from a sense of fear or foreboding has little efficiency. Fear strangles originality, daring, boldness; it kills individuality, and weakens all the mental processes. Great things are never done under a sense of fear of some impending danger. Fear always indicates weakness, the presence of cowardice. What a slaughterer of years, what a sacrificer of happiness and ambitions, what a miner of careers this monster has been! The Bible says, "A broken spirit drieth the bones." It is well known that mental depression--melancholy--will check very materially the glandular secretions of the body and literally dry up the tissues.
Fear depresses normal mental action, and renders one incapable of acting wisely in an emergency, for no one can think clearly and act wisely when paralyzed by fear.
When a man becomes melancholy and discouraged about his affairs, when he is filled with fear that he is going to fail, and is haunted by the specter of poverty and a suffering family, before he realizes it, he attracts the very thing he dreads, and the prosperity is crushed out of his business. But he is a _mental_ failure first.
If, instead of giving up to his fear, a man would _persist in keeping prosperity in his mind_, a.s.sume a hopeful, optimistic att.i.tude, and would conduct his business in a systematic, economical, far-sighted manner, actual failure would be comparatively rare. But when a man becomes discouraged, when he loses heart and grip, and becomes panic-stricken and a victim of worry, he is not in a position to make the effort which is absolutely necessary to bring victory, and there is a shrinkage all along the line.
There is not a single redeeming feature about worry or any of its numerous progeny. It is always, everywhere, an unmitigated curse.
Although there is no reality in fear, no truth behind it, yet everywhere we see people who are slaves to this monster of the imagination.
CHAPTER LV
TAKE A PLEASANT THOUGHT TO BED WITH YOU
Shut off your mental steam when you quit work. Lock up your business when you lock up your office or factory at night. Don"t drag it into your home to mar your evening or to distress your sleep.
You can not afford to allow the enemies of your peace and happiness to etch their black pictures deeper and deeper into your consciousness.
Many people lie down to sleep as the camels lie down in the desert, with their packs still on their backs. They do not seem to know how to lay down their burdens, and their minds go on working a large part of the night. If you are inclined to worry during the night, to keep your mental faculties on the strain, taut, it will be a good plan for you to have a bow in your bedroom and unstring it every night as a reminder that you should also unstring your mind so that it will not lose its springing power. The Indian knows enough to unstring his bow just as soon as he uses it so that it will not lose its resilience.
If a man who works hard all day uses his brain a large part of the night, doing his work over and over again, he gets up in the morning weary, jaded. Instead of having a clear, vigorous brain capable of powerfully focusing his mind, he approaches his work with all his standards down, and with about as much chance of winning as a race horse who has been driven all night before a contest would have. Not even a man with the will of a Napoleon could win out under such conditions.
It is of the utmost importance to stop the grinding, rasping process in the brain at night and to keep from wearing life away and wasting one"s precious vitality.
Many people become slaves to night worry. They get into a chronic habit of thinking after they retire--especially of contemplating their troubles and trials,--and it is a very difficult habit to break.
It is fundamental to sound health to make it a rule never to discuss business troubles and things that vex and irritate one at night, especially just before retiring, for whatever is dominant in the mind when one falls asleep continues its influence on the nervous structure long into the night.
Some people age more at night than during the daytime, when, it would appear, if they must worry at all, the reverse ought to be true. When hard at work during the day they do not have much time to think of their ailments, their business troubles, their misfortunes. But when they retire, the whole brood of troubling thoughts and worry ghosts fill the mind with horrors. They grow older instead of younger, as they would under the influence of sound, refreshing sleep.
Mental discord saps vitality, lessens courage, shortens life. It does not pay to indulge in violent temper, corroding thoughts, mental discord in any form. Life is too short, too precious, to spend any part of it in such unprofitable, soul-racking, health-destroying business. The imagination is particularly active at night, and all unpleasant, disagreeable things seem a great deal worse then than in the day, because in the silence and darkness imagination magnifies everything. We have all dreamed of the evening"s experience, after we went to sleep: perhaps it is the refrain of a song or the intense situation in a play which we live over again. This shows how powerful impressions are; how important it is never to retire to rest in a fit of temper, or in an ugly, unpleasant mood. We should get ourselves into mental harmony, should become serene and quiet before retiring, and, if possible, lie down smiling, no matter how long it may take to secure this condition. Never retire with a frown on your brow; with a perplexed, troubled, vexed expression. Smooth out the wrinkles; drive away all the enemies of your peace of mind, and never allow yourself to go to sleep with critical, cruel, jealous thoughts toward any one.
It is bad enough to feel inimical toward others when under severe provocation or in a hot temper, but you certainly can not afford deliberately to continue this state of mind after the provocation has ceased. The wear and tear upon your nervous system and your health takes too much out of you.
Be at peace with all the world at least once every twenty-four hours.
You can not afford to allow the enemies of your happiness and your manhood or womanhood to etch their miserable images deeper and deeper into your life and character as you sleep.
Many of us with crotchety, sour dispositions and quick tempers sometimes have very hard work to be decent in our treatment of others.
But we can, at least when we are alone, and away from the people who nettle and antagonize us, forget injuries, quit harboring unpleasant thoughts and hard feelings toward others.
It is a great thing to form a habit of forgetting and forgiving before going to sleep, of clearing the mind of all happiness and success enemies. If we have been impulsive, foolish, or wicked during the day in our treatment of others; if we have been holding a vicious, ugly, revengeful, jealous att.i.tude toward others, it is a good time to wipe off the slate and start anew. It is a blessed thing to put into practise St. Paul"s exhortation to the Ephesians: "Let not the sun go down upon your wrath."
If you wish to wake up feeling refreshed and renewed, you simply must retire in a happy, forgiving, cheerful mood. If you go to sleep in an ugly mood or while worrying or depressed, you will wake up tired, exhausted and with no elasticity or spring in your brain or buoyancy in your spirits, for the blood poisoned by worry, by discordant mood, is incapable of refreshing the brain.
If you have a grudge against another, forget it, wipe it out, erase it completely, and subst.i.tute a charitable love thought, a kindly, generous thought, before you fall asleep. If you make a habit of clearing the mind every night of its enemies, of driving them all out before you go to sleep, your slumber will be undisturbed by hideous dreams and you will rise refreshed, renewed.
Clean your mental house before retiring. Throw out everything that causes you pain, everything that is disagreeable, undesirable; all unkind thoughts of anger, hatred, jealousy, all selfish, uncharitable thoughts. Do not allow them to print their black hideous pictures upon your mind. And when you have let go of all the rubbish and have swept and dusted and garnished your mind, fill it full of the pleasantest, sweetest, happiest, most helpful, encouraging, uplifting thought-pictures possible.
An evening-happiness bath ought to be the custom in every home. A bath of love and good-will toward every living creature is more important than a water bath.
We should fall asleep in the most cheerful, the happiest possible frame of mind. Our minds should be filled with lofty thoughts--with thoughts of love and of helpfulness--thoughts which will continue to create that which is helpful and uplifting, which will renew the soul and help us to awake in the morning refreshed and in superb condition for the day"s work.
If you have any difficulty in banishing unpleasant or torturing thoughts, force yourself to read some good, inspiring book--something that will smooth out your wrinkles and put you in a happy mood; something that will make you see the real grandeur and beauty of life; something that will make you feel ashamed of petty meannesses and narrow, uncharitable thoughts.
After a little practise, you will be surprised to see how quickly and completely you can change your whole mental att.i.tude so that you will face life the right way before you fall asleep.
You will be surprised also to find how wonderfully serene, calm, refreshed, and rejuvenated you will be when you wake in the morning, and how much easier it will be to start right, and wear a smile that won"t come off during the day, than it was when you went to bed in an ill-humored, worrying or ugly mood, or full of ungenerous, uncharitable thoughts.
Unless you tune your mind to harmony for sleep, there will be a constant strain upon the nervous system. Even if you do manage to go to sleep with a troubled mind, the brain keeps on working and you will wake up exhausted.
We should take special pains to erase the memory of all unfortunate experiences of the day, all domestic business or professional troubles and anxieties, in order to retire in a placid, peaceful, harmonious state of mind; not only because of the necessity of rising refreshed and invigorated in the morning, but because the character and the disposition are affected by the condition of the mind upon falling asleep. Mental discords not only prevent sound sleep but also leave in the blood poisonous waste from the chemical changes which in turn dulls and impairs the brain action.
Many business men suffer so much torture at night that some of them actually dread to retire because of the long, tedious, wakeful hours.
Financial troubles are particularly exaggerated at night; and even many optimists suffer more or less from pessimism then.
Business men ought to know how to turn off brain power when they are not using it. They would not think of leaving or closing their factories at night without turning off the machinery power. Why should they then attempt to go to sleep without turning off their mental power? It is infinitely important to one"s health to turn off mental power when not actually using it to produce something.
When you get through your regular day"s work, why allow your precious energy to dribble away in little worries? Why carry your business home, take it to bed with you, and waste your life forces in ineffective thinking? Why permit a great leakage of mental energy and a waste of life-force? You must learn to shut off mental steam when you quit work.
Many men use up almost as much mental energy in the evening and in a restless night as during their actual work in the day.
Refresh, renew, rejuvenate yourself by play and pleasant recreation.