| The Every Day of Life |
Chapter 9 |
Page 4 |
What is the secret of this peace? How is it to be gotten? St. Paul gives the answer in two very definite counsels. The first is, “In nothing be anxious.” Anxiety is worry. We cannot help having things in life that would naturally make us anxious. Yet come what may we are not to be anxious.
There are reasons for this counsel. Worry does no good. It changes nothing. Worrying over a disappointment does not give us the thing we wanted. Worrying about the weather does not make it cold or warm, cloudy or sunny. Worrying over a loss does not give us back the thing we prized. Our Lord reminds us of the uselessness of worry when he says that by being anxious about our stature we cannot make ourselves any taller.
Anxiety enfeebles and wastes one’s strength. One day’s worry exhausts a person more than a whole week of quiet, peaceful work. It is worry, not overwork, as a rule, which kills people. Worry keeps the brain excited, the blood feverish, the heart working wildly, the nerves quivering, and the whole machinery of the life in unnatural tension, and it is no wonder then that people break down.
Anxiety mars one’s work. Nobody can do the best work when fevered by worry. One may rush and always be in great haste, and may talk about being busy, fuming and sweating as if he/she were doing ten person’s duties, and yet some quiet person alongside, who is moving leisurely and without any anxious haste, is probably accomplishing twice as much and doing it better. Fluster unfits one for good work.
Anxiety irritates and frets one. A sweet spirit is an essential feature of every beautiful life. Ungoverned temper is not only unchristian, but is also most unlovely. There may be a difference of taste concerning many matters. What one thinks very beautiful in dress or manner, another may condemn. But no one thinks bad temper lovely. Yet worry leads to irritability, makes one censorious, querulous, of a complaining, repining spirit. One cannot have a uniformly sweet spirit, patient, gentle, amiable, without peace in the heart. Peace makes the face lovely even in homeliness.
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