No man can afford to ignore Nature’s warnings, but least of all can the salesman, on whose physical condition everything depends. Other men can depute their work, at least for a time, to those under them; but the salesman cannot do this, for he is strictly a one-man concern, and everything depends on his health. He must always be at the top of his condition; and every quality needed in his work is sharpened and braced by vigorous health.
How comparatively easy it is, for instance, for a healthy man to be hopeful, optimistic, enthusiastic. How difficult for a chronic dyspeptic to be any of these—to be kind, gentle, generous, cheerful, obliging. His natural disposition may not be at fault, for the tendency of ill health is to make a man cross, crabbed, fault-finding, fretful, hard, pessimistic.
“Touchiness,” a defect which makes so many men and women unbearable, usually comes from some weakness or physical ailment. A great many so-called “sins” are due to a depleted physical condition. It is so much easier for a man to control himself when he is well, to say “No” with emphasis, when, if he were suffering from some physical disability, he might say “Yes,”—anything to get rid of annoyance and to get into a more comfortable condition.
How much health has to do with one’s manners! How easy to be courteous and accommodating when one feels the thrill of health surging through his whole being; but how hard to be polite, gentle, amiable, when one feels ill, weak, and nervous, and wants to be let alone! How hard to carry on an interesting conversation when all of one’s physical standards are down!
Then again, how the health affects the judgment! The judgment is really a combination of a great many other faculties, and the condition of each seriously affects the quality of the combination.
One’s courage is largely a matter of physical health. How quickly the ailing man, to whom everything looks blue, becomes discouraged! Everything looks black to people whose physical standards are demoralized.
Horse trainers know that a horse’s courage during the contest depends a great deal upon its being in a superb physical condition. It is the same with the horse’s master—man. Courage, poise, masterfulness, resourcefulness, physical vigor go together. Nervousness, timidity, uncertainty, doubt, hesitation, usually accompany depleted vitality.
The bull-dog tenacity which plays such a part in every life worth while has a physical basis. The will power, which is a leader in the mental kingdom, depends very largely upon the health. How different, for example, obstacles look to the man who is ailing all the time, suffering pain, compared with the way they look to a man who is full of vigor and energy. The man who is well plans great things to-day, because he feels strong and vigorous. Obstacles are nothing to him; he feels within himself the power to annihilate them. But to-morrow he is ill, and the obstacles which were only molehills yesterday, loom up like mountains, and he does not see how he can possibly conquer them.
We look at things through our moods, and moods are largely a question of physical health. The man who is strong and full of the courage of abounding vitality wants something hard to wrestle with; he feels the need of vigorous exercise. But the man whose vitality is low has no surplus to spare. Slight difficulties look formidable to him; trifles are exaggerated into serious obstacles, which seem insurmountable. There is confusion all through his mental kingdom, and his faculties will not work harmoniously. There is a tremendous wear and tear on the physical economy of the man in poor health.
The faculty of humor was given man to ease him over the jolts, to oil the bearings of life’s machinery; but ill health often crushes out the sense of humor, and makes life, which was intended to be bright and cheerful, sad and gloomy. Loss of good red blood corpuscles has much to do with one’s sense of humor as well as one’s manners and disposition. The man in poor health is in no condition to appreciate the joys of life. Everything loses its flavor in proportion to his lowered vitality.