The singular part of it was that the quiet, steady-going man got through more work in the day than his friend did, and years later, when they had reached middle age, was as fit as ever for his business, whereas the other man was broken down by overwork, as he called it.
In the last chapter we considered the question of physical and mental fatigue resulting from work. We purposely omitted the element of worry, which does more harm than all the other conditions of work put together. For worry does more than tire the mind—it demoralises it.
In a certain war two companies of men had to march an equal distance in order to meet at a particular spot. The one arrived in perfect order, and with few signs of exhaustion, although the march had been an arduous one. The other company reached the place utterly done up and disorganised. It was all a question of leadership: the captain of the first company had known his way and kept his men in good order, while the captain of the second company had never been sure of himself, and had harassed his subordinates with a constant succession of orders and counter-orders, until they had hardly known whether they were on their heads or their heels. That was why they arrived looking completely demoralised.
Worry and the mind.
Now worry has precisely the same effect on the mind as a bad leader has upon his men. For the mind is not a vague mystery “somewhere inside the head,” as it is generally supposed to be. The brain is a matter of tissue and blood, the same as any other part of the body. We may not know quite so much about it, but that does not affect the question. The workings of the mind are as definite and practical as the movements of the fingers. The brain cells have, stretching out from them, a number of minute filaments. We know that the tips of these filaments move about and touch their neighbours. And according to the manner in which they move, different trains of thought are set up. The intricate network is constantly changing its form, as the filaments link up together various parts of the brain tissue.
It is, in fact, the counterpart of a telephone system, which has wires and exchanges and call offices extending all over the country. From these offices telephone callers are put into communication with each other, and there is a never-ending linking-up and switching-off taking place, and the harmony of the systems depends on the efficiency of the operators. Fill one of the exchanges with a lot of fussy, ill-trained people, who would lose their heads, and the whole system would be disorganised in a very short time.
Each man possesses his own telephone system inside his head, and the working of it depends entirely on himself. If he fidgets and fumes and gets excited over what he is doing, he worries the brain filaments until they begin to act all ways except the right one. And not only do they fail to carry out their purpose, but the bother and flurry through which they pass tire them out as no amount of steady work could ever do. Like the men of the second company, they get to the end of their day’s work fagged and exhausted.
If this goes on long, for days and months and years in succession, the strain becomes too great, and they either refuse to work at all or they get completely out of hand. And, whichever they do, it means that the man who owns them suffers from a breakdown. And it was the worry, not the work, which caused it.
Some people have a born knack of worrying. The mental agony through which they pass when taking a railway journey is almost incredible. They worry as to whether they will get to the station in time, and if their luggage will arrive safely at its destination, and a hundred other things as well.
We once heard a lady say—almost boastfully, she seemed proud of the fact—that she never slept a wink all night if she was a penny out in her household accounts. She did not say what happened if she was a halfpenny out. We can only presume, therefore, that in that case she slept for half the night.