CHAPTER XVII
COWARDICE AND WORRY
Cowardice is a much more prolific source of worry than most people imagine. There are many varieties of cowardice, all tracing their ancestry back to fear. Fear truly makes cowards of us all. There are the physical cowards, the social cowards, the business cowards, the hang-on-to-your-job cowards, the political cowards, the moral cowards, the religious cowards, and fifty-seven, nay, a hundred and one other varieties. Each and all of these have their own attendant demons of worry. Every barking dog becomes a lion ready to tear one to pieces, and no bridge is strong enough to allow us to pass over in safety. No cloud has a silver lining, and every rain-storm is sure to work injury to the crops rather than bring the needful moisture for their vivification.
What a piteous sight to see a man who dares not express his honest opinions, who must crawl instead of walk upright, in the presence of his employer, lest he lose his job. How his cowardice worries him, meets him at every turn, torments him, lest some incautious word be repeated, lest he say or do the wrong thing. And so long as there are cowards to employ, bully employers will exist. Nay, the cowardice seems to call out bullying qualities. Just as a cur will follow you with barkings and threatening growls if you run from him, and yet turn tail and run when you boldly face him, so with most men, with society, with the world—flee from them, show your fear of them, and they will harry you, but boldly face them, they gentle down immediately, fawn upon you, lie down, or, to use an expressive slang phrase, "come and eat out of your hand."
How politicians straddle the fence, refrain from expressing their opinions, deal in glittering generalities, because of their cowardly fears. How they turn their sails to catch every breath of popular favor. How cautious, politic, wary, they are, and how fears worry and besiege them, whenever they accidentally or incidentally say something that can be interpreted as a positive conviction. And yet men really love a brave man in political life; one who has definite convictions and fearlessly states them; who has no worries as to results but dares to say and do those things only of which his conscience approves. No matter how one may regard Roosevelt, cowardice is one thing none will accuse him of. He says his say, does his will, expresses himself with freedom upon any and all subjects, let results be as they may. Such a man is free from the petty worries that beset most politicians. He knows nothing of their existence. They cannot breathe in the free atmosphere that is essential to his life; like the cowardly cur, they run away at his approach.
Oh, cowards all, of every kind and degree, quit ye like men, be strong and of good courage, dare and do, dare and say, dare and be, take a manly stand, fling out your banner boldly to the breeze, cry out as did Patrick Henry: "Give me liberty, or give me death," or as that other patriot did: "Sink or swim, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart to this vote." Do the things you are afraid of; dare the men who make cowards of you; say the things you fear to say; and be the things you know you ought to be, and it will surprise you how the petty devils of worry will slink away from you. You will walk in new life, in new strength, in new joy, in new freedom. For he who lives a life free from worries of this nature, has a spontaneity, a freedom, an exuberance, an enthusiasm, a boldness, that not only are winsome in themselves, make friends, open the doors of opportunity, attract the moving elements of life, but that give to their possessor an entirely new outlook, a wider survey, a more comprehensive grasp. Life itself becomes bigger, grander, more majestic, more worth while, the whole horizon expands, and from being a creature of petty affairs, dabbling in a small way in the stuff of which events are made, he becomes a potent factor, a man, a creator, a god, though in the germ.