Worry Versus Indifference

Quit Your Worrying!
by George Wharton James

(Page 20 of 21)

Chapter XXIV

The aim and object of all striving in life should be to grow more human, more humane, less selfish, more helpful to our fellows. Any system of life that fails to meet this universal need is predestined to failure. When, therefore, I urge upon my readers that they quit their worrying about their husbands or wives, sons and daughters, neighbors and friends, the wicked and the good, I do not mean that they are to harden their hearts and become indifferent to their welfare. God forbid! No student of the human heart, of human life, and of the Bible can long ignore the need of a caution upon these lines. The sacred writer knew what he was talking about when he spoke of the human heart as deceitful and desperately wicked. It is deceitful or it would never blind people as it does to the inutility, the futility of much of their goodness. A goodness that is wrapped up in a napkin, and lies unused for the benefit of others, rots and becomes a putrid mass of corruption. It can only remain good by being unselfishly used for the good of others, and to prove that the human heart is desperately wicked one needs only to look at the suffering endured by mankind unnecessarily - suffering that organized society ought to prevent and render impossible.

The parable of the lost sheep was written to give us this needful lesson. The shepherd, when he found one of his sheep gone, did not sit down and wring his hands in foolish and useless worry as to what would happen to the sheep, the dangers that would beset it, the thorns, the precipices, the wolves. Nor did he count over the times he had cautioned the sheep not to get away from its fellows. Granted that it was conceited, self-willed, refused to listen to counsel, disobedient - the main fact in the mind of the shepherd was that it was lost, unprotected, in danger, afraid, cold, hungry, longing for the sheepfold, the companionship of its fellows and the guardianship of the shepherd. Hence, he went out eagerly and sympathetically, and searched until he found it and brought it back to shelter.

This, then, should be the spirit of those who have needed my caution and advice to quit their worrying about their loved ones and others - Do not worry, but do not, under any consideration, become hard-hearted, careless, or indifferent. Better by far preserve your interest and the human tenderness that leads you to the useless and needless expenditure of energy and sympathy in worry than that you should let your loved ones suffer without any care, thought, or endeavor on their behalf. But do not let it be a sympathy that leads to worry. Let it be helpful, stimulating, directive, energizing in the good. Overcome evil with good. Resist evil and it will flee from you. So long as those you love are absorbed in the things that in the past have led you to worry over them, be tender and sympathetic with them, surround them with your holy and helpful love.

Jesus was tender and compassionate with all who were sick or diseased in body or mind. He was never angry with any, save the proud and self-righteous Pharisees. He tenderly forgave the adulterous woman, justified the publican and never lectured or rebuked those who came to have their bodily and mental infirmities removed by him. Let us then be tender with the erring and the sinful, rather than censorious, and full of rebuke. Is it not the better way to point out the right - overcome the evil with the good, and thus bind our erring loved ones more firmly to ourselves. Surely our own errors, failures, weaknesses and sins ought to have taught us this lesson.

In the bedroom of a friend where I recently slept, was a card on which was illuminated these words, which bear particularly upon this subject:

The life that has not known and accepted sorrow is strangely crude and untaught; it can neither help nor teach, for it has never learned. The life that has spurned the lesson of sorrow, or failed to read it aright, is cold and hard. But the life that has been disciplined by sorrow is courageous and full of holy and gentle love.

And it is this holy, gentle, and courageous love that we need to exercise every day towards those who require it, rather than the worry that frets still more, irritates, and widens the gulf already existent. So, reader, don't worry, but help, sympathetically and lovingly, and above all, don't become indifferent, hard-hearted and selfish.

Chapter XXV

Worries and Hobbies

Though these words are much alike in sound they have no sympathy one with another. Put them in active operation and they rush at each other's throats far worse than Allies and Germans are now fighting. They strive for a death grip, and as soon as one gets hold he hangs on to the end - if he can. Yet, as in all conflicts, the right is sure to win in an equal combat, the right of the hobby is absolutely certain to win over the wrong of the worry.

Webster defines a hobby as: "A subject or plan which one is constantly setting off," or "a favorite and ever recurring theme of discourse, thought, or effort," but the editor of The Century Dictionary has a better definition, more in accord with modern thought, viz., "That which a person persistently pursues or dwells upon with zeal or delight, as if riding a horse."

Are you cursed by the demon of worry? Has he got a death grip on your throat? Do you want to be freed from his throttling assaults? If so, get a hobby, the more mentally occupying the better, and ride it earnestly, sincerely, furiously. Let it be what it will, it will far more than pay in the end, when you find yourself free from the nightmare of worry that has so relentlessly ridden you for so long. Collect bugs, old china, Indian baskets, Indian blankets, pipes, domestic implements, war paraphanalia, photographs, butterflies; make an herbarium of the flowers of your State; collect postage stamps, old books, first editions; go in for extra-illustrating books; pick up and classify all the stray phrases you hear - do anything that will occupy your mind to the exclusion of worry.

And let me here add a thought - the more unselfish you can make your hobby the better it will be for you. Perhaps I can put it even in a better way yet: The less your hobby is entered into with the purely personal purpose of pleasing yourself, and the more actively you can make it beneficial, helpful, joy-giving to others, the more potent for good it will be in aiding you to get rid of your worries. He who blesses another is thrice blessed, for he not only blesses himself by the act, but brings upon himself the blessing of the recipient and of Almighty God, with the oft-added blessing of those who learn of the good deed and breathe a prayer of commendation for him. In San Francisco there is a newspaper man who writes in a quaint, peculiar, simple, yet subtle fashion, who signs himself "K.C.B." During the Panama-Pacific Exposition one of his hobbies was to plan to take there all the poor youngsters of the streets, the newsboys, the little ones in hospitals, the incurables, the down-and-outers of the work-house and poor-farm, and finally, the almost forgotten old men and women of the almshouses.

I saw strong men weep with deep emotion at the procession of automobiles conveying the happy though generally silent throngs on one of these occasions, and "K.C.B." must have felt the showers of blessings that were sent in his direction from those who saw and appreciated his beautiful helpfulness.

There is nothing to hinder any man, woman, youth or maiden from doing exactly the same kind of thing, with the same spirit, and bringing a few hours of happiness to the needy, thus driving worry out of the mind, putting it hors de combat, so that it need never again rise from the field.

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.