Quit Your Worrying! | Page 8

been made
through the efforts of a few solitary, exceptional, rare individuals, not
by the combined efforts of us all. You and I are as common,
unprogressive, uninventive, indifferent mediocrities as we--the
common people--always were. We have not contributed one iota to all
this progress, and I often question whether mud; of it comes to us more
fraught with good than evil. We claim the results without engaging in
the work. We use the 'phone and worry because Central doesn't get us
our connections immediately, when we haven't the faintest conception
of how the connection is gained, or why we are delayed. We ride on the
fast train, but chafe and worry ourselves and everybody about us to a
frazzle because we are stopped on a siding by a semaphore of a block
station which we never have observed, and would not understand if we
did. We reap but have not sowed, gather but have not strewed, and that
is ever injurious and never beneficial. Our conceit is flattered and
enlarged, our importance magnified, our "dignity"--God save the
mark!--made more impressive, and as a result, we are more the target
for the inconsequential worries of life. We worry if we are not flattered,
if our importance is not recognized even by strangers, and our dignity
not honored--in other words we worry that we are not _kow-towed_ to,
deferred to, respectfully greeted on every hand and made to feel that
civilization, progress and advancement are materially furthered and
enhanced by our mere existence.
Every individual with such an outlook on life is a prolific distributer of
worry germs; he, she, is a pest and a nuisance, more disturbing to the
real peace of the community than a victim of smallpox, and one who
should be isolated in a pest-house. But, unfortunately, our myopic
vision sees only the wealth, the luxury, the spending capacity of such

an individual, and that ends it--we bow down and worship before the
golden calf.
If I had the time in these pages to discuss the history of worry, I am
assured I could show clearly to the student of history that worry is
always the product of prosperity; that while a nation is hard at work at
its making, and every citizen is engaged in arduous labor of one kind or
another for the upbuilding of his own or the national power, worry is
scarcely known. The builders of our American civilization were too
busy conquering the wilderness of New England, the prairies of the
Middle West, the savannahs and lush growths of the South, the arid
deserts of the West to have much time for worry. Such men and women
were gifted with energy, the power of initiative and executive ability,
they were forceful, daring, courageous and active, and in their very
working had neither time nor thought for worry.
But just as soon as a reasonable amount of success attended their
efforts, and they had amassed wealth their children began and
continued to worry. Not occupied with work that demands our
unceasing energy, we find ourselves occupied with trifles, worrying
over our health, our investments, our luxuries, our lap-dogs and our
frivolous occupations. Imagine the old-time pioneers of the forest, plain,
prairie and desert worrying about sitting in a draught, or taking cold if
they got wet, or wondering whether they could eat what would be set
before them at the next meal. They were out in the open, compelled to
take whatever weather came to them, rain or shine, hot or cold, sleet or
snow, and ready when the sunset hour came, to eat with relish and
appetite sauce, the rude and plain victuals placed upon the table.
Compare the lives of that class of men with the later generation of
"capitalists." I know one who used to live at Sherry's in New York. His
apartments were as luxurious as those of a monarch; he was not happy,
however, for worry rode him from morning to night. He absolutely
spent an hour or more each day consulting the menu, or discussing with
the steward what he could have to place upon his menu, and died long
before his time, cursed with his wealth, its resultant idleness and the
trifling worries that always come to such men. Had he been reduced to

poverty, compelled to go out and work on a farm, eat oatmeal mush or
starve for breakfast, bacon and greens for dinner, and cold pork and
potatoes or starve for supper, he would be alive and happy to-day.
Take the fussy, nervous, irritable, worrying men and women of life,
who poke their noses into other people's affairs, retail all the scandal,
and hand on all the slander and gossip of empty and, therefore, evil
minds. They are invariably well to do and without any