Neurasthenia : Part 2

Why Worry?
by George Lincoln Walton, M.D.

(Page 9 of 18)

Among the predisposing causes for nervous breakdown none is more potent than the inability of the obsessive to adapt himself to change of plan, and to reconcile himself to criticism, opposition, and the various annoyances incident to his occupation.

In dealing with others the following suggestion of Marcus Aurelius may come in play:

"When a man has done thee any wrong, immediately consider with what opinion about good or evil he has done wrong. For when thou hast seen this, thou wilt pity him, and neither wonder nor be angry." Again, in this connection the lines of Cowper are pertinent:

"The modest, sensible and well-bred man
Will not affront me, and no other can."

Pope, also, who is said not always to have followed his own good counsel, contributes a verse which may serve a turn:

"At ev'ry trifle scorn to take offense,
That always shows great pride, or little sense."

The practice of such commonplace philosophy (which, to be effective, should be ready for immediate use, not stored away for later reflection), together with training against faulty mental states studied in these pages, will go far toward relieving the mental perturbation that unfits for effective work, and contributes to "neurasthenia."

During an hour's delay, caused by the failure of another to keep an appointment, I formulated the following maxim:

"These are the annoyances incident to my business; to fret when they occur means that I cannot manage my business without friction."

This may not appeal to the reader, but for me it has proved as good an hour's work as I ever did. Since that time, on the occurrence of similar sources of provocation, I have found it necessary to go no farther than "These are the annoyances," to restore the needful balance. When we allow our gorge to rise at ordinary sources of discomfort, it implies that we are prepared only for our affairs to run with perfect smoothness. This represents the insistent idea carried to an absurdity.

At the risk of losing caste with the critical I cannot forbear sharing with the reader an inelegant maxim which has more than once prevented an access of rage upon the blunder of a subordinate: "If he had our brains he'd have our job."

Spinoza says: "The powerlessness of man to govern and restrain his emotions I call servitude. For a man who is controlled by his emotions is not his own master but is mastered by fortune, under whose power he is often compelled, though he sees the better, to follow the worse." The same philosopher in counselling self-restraint adds:

"The mind's power over the emotions consists, first, in the actual knowledge of the emotions." Again: "An emotion which is a passion ceases to be a passion as soon as we form a clear and distinct idea of it." The meaning of this dictum I first realized on experiencing the magical effect of the line of thought suggested by the delayed appointment.

* * *

Communion with Nature has a peculiarly soothing effect on tired and jangled nerves. My friend, Dr. Harold Williams, tells me that among his main reliances for tired and overwrought women are the reading of children's books, and working in the garden. Peterson thus advises his busy patient:

"A small farm in a simple community would be for you an asset of immeasurable value from the standpoint of health and spiritual rejuvenation. But true simplicity should be the rigorous order of that country life. A chateau by the sea, with a corps of gardeners, a retinue of servants, and yachts and automobiles, would prove a disastrous expedient.

"In that quiet retreat you should personally and tenderly learn to know each rosebud, shrub, vine, creeper, tree, rock, glade, dell, of your own estate. You should yourself design the planting, paths, roads, the flower-garden, the water-garden, the wood-garden, the fernery, the lily-pond, the wild-garden, and the kitchen garden."

Not everyone is so happily situated as to be able to follow this advice in its entirety, but many can make a modest effort in this direction: the kitchen-garden may appeal to some who have no appreciation for the wild flowers, and who scorn to cultivate such tastes.

One warning is, however, here in order: The cultivation of the garden or the field for utilitarian purposes is inevitably associated with the maxim, "Hoe out your row" - an excellent maxim for the idle and disorderly, but not to be taken too literally by the over-exacting and methodical business man who is trying to make the radical change in his view of life necessary to free his mind from the incubus of worry. Nor must the amateur husbandman scan with too anxious eye the weather map and the clouds. If he mind these warnings he may learn to say, -

"For me kind Nature wakes her genial pow'r,
Suckles each herb, and spreads out ev'ry flower,
Annual for me, the grape, the rose renew,
The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew."

The over-conscientious individual may object that it is selfish to consider his own comfort when he has work to do for others. But expending too freely of our nervous energies, even in a good cause, is like giving to charity so much of our substance that we in turn are obliged to lean on others for support.

In properly conserving our own energy we may be lightening the ultimate burden of others. There is no place for selfishness in Haeckel's philosophy regarding the proper balance between duty to one's self and duty to others. Nor was selfishness a failing of the Quaker poet who idealized

"The flawless symmetry of man,
The poise of heart and mind."