If circumstances have given a woman home and children, they always must come first, but this does not mean the woman must do housework if conditions permit the employment of somebody to do it. She must do the work for which she is best fitted both by nature and by training.
In whatever occupation a woman is engaged she should endeavor to make a success of that work, to do it a little better than anyone else could; for in every field of endeavor there is joy and reward for always being and doing one's best. The great secret of success is concentration. Too many women waste their energies thinking and talking about the things they would like to do. Every time you talk about the thing you would like to do you waste just that much energy and make your goal less possible of achievement. That which seems difficult before is usually found easy to accomplish, once undertaken. If you wish to accomplish anything hold the thought in your mind and concentrate all your powers in that direction. Do not scatter your energies like chaff to be blown hither and thither.
CHAPTER XXIV
NERVOUSNESS—A LACK OF CONTROL
How often do we meet women who complain of being nervous. What they really mean is that they have not control of their nerves but let them run away. A woman may be of a nervous temperament and yet have such good control of her nerves that she never complains of being nervous. This lack of nerve control manifests itself in various ways. Sometimes it only is a tendency to cry at trivial things or an inclination to despondency—to have "the blues," or to worry over real or fancied slights. Many women waste so much time thinking over things that are past and gone. A visit with a friend loses its joy in the afterthought, for this victim of the nerves lives over again every moment of the visit. She recalls everything that has been said and wonders if a different meaning were meant. Things that were said as a joke and originally taken that way now are brought up for criticism and pondered over until the woman convinces herself of the presence of a hidden meaning. She is not satisfied until she has bent and shapen the original thoughtless sentence into an ugly sting.
These nervous women are the ones who continually are tormented with the demon of jealousy. If one of them should suddenly meet her husband on the street walking with another woman, what a curtain lecture he would receive that evening; or if not that, he finds his wife wearing the air of one who considers herself much abused. The real facts of the case may be that her husband met the other woman quite accidentally and, as they were going in the same direction, he could not avoid walking with her without being positively rude. In this age men must, of necessity, have business transactions with women. It is a common occurrence for two men to lunch together in order to have a chance to talk over some important business without fear of interruption. There is no reason why a man and woman might not do the same, and yet how impossible it would be to convince the jealous woman that this was the case. To be jealous is to acknowledge the superior charms of the other woman. "If I cannot hold you against all women, then I do not want you." If you think some other woman is attracting your husband, wake up and beat her at her own game. Do not sit idly in the corner and complain. You only are making yourself miserable and not trying to right the wrong.
A woman who is nervous usually does not realize what is the cause of her condition. When excitable and irritable and suffering from a nervous headache, she takes various remedies to deaden the symptoms, instead of looking the matter squarely in the face and going after the cause.
Many women need a hobby to take up their spare time and to occupy their minds. If their minds are occupied and their bodies kept in good condition by proper care, they soon will gain control of their nerves. If you find yourself getting nervous, make up your mind to overcome it by filling your life so full of work and play that you will have no time to give way to the nerves. When you feel an attack coming on, get busy and "work it off."