Causes of Worry : Part 6

Quit Your Worrying!
by George Wharton James

(Page 12 of 25)

I have no desire to excoriate or make fun of those who really suffer from chronic invalidism, yet I am fully assured that much of the hyper-sensitiveness of the neurasthenic and hypochondriac could be removed by a little rude, rough and tumble contact with life. It would do most of these people no harm to follow the advice given by Abernethy, the great English physician, to a pampered, overfed hyper-sensitive: Live on six pence a day and earn it. I have found few hyper-sensitives among the poor. Poverty is a fine cure for most cases, though there are those who cling to their pride of birth of education, or God knows what of insane belief in their superiority over ordinary mortals, and make that the occasion, or cause, of the innumerable and fretting worries of hyper-sensitiveness.

Another serious cause of worry, in this busy, bustling, rapid age, is the need we feel for hurry. We are caught in the mad rush and its influence leads us to feel that we, too, must rush. There is no earthly reason for our hurry, and yet we cannot seem to help it.

Hurry means worry. Rush spells fret. Haste makes waste. You live in the country and are a commuter. You must be in the city on the stroke of nine. To do this, you must catch the 8:07. You have your breakfast to get and it takes six minutes to walk to the station. No one can do it comfortably in less. Yet every morning, ever since you took this country cottage, you have had to rush through your breakfast, and rush to the depot in order to catch the train. Thus starting the day on the rush, you have continued "on the stretch" all day, and get back home at night tired out, fretted and worried "almost to death." Even when you sit down to breakfast, you begin to worry if wifie doesn't have everything ready. You know you'll be late. You feel it, and if the toast and coffee are not on the table the moment you sit down, your querelous complaints strike the morning air.

Now what's the use?

Why don't you get up ten, fifteen, or twenty minutes earlier, and thus give yourself time to eat comfortably, and thus get over the worry of your rush? Set the alarm clock for 7:00, or 6:45, or even 6:30. Far better get up half an hour too early, than worry yourself, your wife, and the whole household by your insane hurry. Your worry is wholly unnecessary and shows a fearful lack of simple intelligence.

Annie Laurie, who writes many sage counsels in the San Francisco Examiner, had an excellent article on this subject in the issue of December 31, 1915. She wrote:

Here is something that I saw out my window - it has given me the big thought for my biggest New Year's resolution. The man at the corner house ran down the steps in a terrible hurry. He saw the car coming up the hill and whistled to it from the porch, but the man who was running the car did not hear the whistle. Anyway, he didn't stop the car, and the man on the steps looked as if he'd like to catch the conductor of that car and do something distinctly unfriendly to him, and do it right then and there. He jammed his hat down over his forehead and started walking very fast.

"What's your hurry?" said the man he was passing on the corner. "What's your hurry, Joe?" and the man on the corner held out his hand.

"Well, I'll be - ," said Joe, and he held out his hand, too, "if it isn't - "

And it was, and they both laughed and shook hands and clapped each other on the back and shook hands again.

"What's your hurry?" said the man on the corner again.

"I dun-no," said the man who was so cross because he'd lost his car. "Nothing much, I guess," and he laughed and the other man laughed and they shook hands again. And the last I saw of them they had started down the street right In the opposite direction from which the man in the hurry had started to go, and they weren't in a hurry at all.

Do you know what I wished right then and there? I wished that every time I get into the senseless habit of rushing everywhere and tearing through everything as if it was my last day on earth and there wasn't a minute left to lose, somebody would stop me on the corner of whatever street of circumstance I may be starting to cross and say to me in friendly fashion:

"What's the hurry?"

What is the hurry, after all? Where are we all going? What for?

What difference does it make whether I read my paper at 8 o'clock in the morning or at half-past 9?

Will the world stop swinging in its orbit if I don't meet just so many people a day, write so many letters, hear so many lectures, skim through so many books? Of course if I'm earning my living I must work for it and work not only honestly but hard. But it seems to me that most of the terrific hurrying we do hasn't much to do with really essential work after all. It's a kind of habit we get into, a sort of madness, like the thing that overtakes the crowd at a ferry landing or the entrance to a train. I've seen men, and women, too, fairly fight to get onto a particular car when the next car would have done just exactly as well.

Where are they going in such a hurry? To save a life? To mend a broken heart? To help to heal a wounded spirit? Or are they just rushing because the rest do it?

What do they get out of life - these people who are always in a rush?

Look! The laurel tree in my California garden is full of bursting buds! The rains are beginning and the trees will soon be flecked with a silver veil of blossoms. I hadn't noticed it before. I've been too busy.

What's your hurry? Come, friend of my heart, I'll say that to you to-day and say it in deep and friendly earnest.

What's your hurry? Come, let's go for a walk together and see if we can find out. Let us keep finding out through all the new year.

There are many other causes of worry, some of them so insidious, so powerful, as to call for treatment in special chapters.

About the Author

George Wharton James (1858 - 1923) was a prolific popular lecturer and journalist, writing more than 40 books and many articles and pamphlets on California and the American Southwest. James was born in Lincolnshire, England. He was ordained as a Methodist minister and came to the United States in 1881, serving in parishes in Nevada and southern California.