"It is not work that kills men," says Beecher; "it is worry. Work is healthy; you can hardly put more on a man than he can bear. But worry is rust upon the blade. It is not movement that destroys the machinery, but friction."
Helen Hunt says there is one sin which seems to be everywhere, and by everybody is underestimated and quite too much overlooked in valuations of character. It is the sin of fretting. It is as common as air, as speech; so common that unless it rises above its usual monotone we do not even observe it. Watch any ordinary coming together of people, and we see how many minutes it will be before somebody frets—that is, makes more or less complaint of something or other, which probably every one in the room, or car, or on the street corner knew before, and which most probably nobody can help. Why say anything about it? It is cold, it is hot, it is wet, it is dry, somebody has broken an appointment, ill-cooked a meal; stupidity or bad faith somewhere has resulted in discomfort. There are plenty of things to fret about. It is simply astonishing, how much annoyance and discomfort may be found in the course of every-day living, even of the simplest, if one only keeps a sharp eye out on that side of things. Some people seem to be always hunting for deformities, discords and shadows, instead of beauty, harmony and light. We are born to trouble, as sparks fly upward. But even to the sparks flying upward, in the blackest of smoke, there is a blue sky above, and the less time they waste on the road, the sooner they will reach it. Fretting is all time wasted on the road.
About two things we should never fret, that which we cannot help, and that which we can help. Better find one of your own faults than ten of your neighbor's.
It is not the troubles of to-day, but those of to-morrow and next week and next year, that whiten our heads and wrinkle our faces.
"Every man we meet looks as if he'd gone out to borrow trouble, with plenty of it on hand," said a French lady driving in New York.
The pendulum of a certain clock began to calculate how often it would have to swing backward and forward in the week and in the month to come; then looking further into the future, it made a calculation for a year, etc. The pendulum got frightened and stopped. Do one day's work at a time. Do not worry about the trouble of to-morrow. Most of the trouble in life is borrowed trouble, which never actually comes.
"As all healthy action, physical, intellectual and moral, depends primarily on cheerfulness," says E. P. Whipple, "and as every duty, whether it be to follow a plow or to die at the stake, should be done in a cheerful spirit, the exploration of the sources and conditions of this most vigorous, exhilarating and creative of the virtues may be as useful as the exposition of any topic of science or system of prudential art."
Christ, the great teacher, did not shut Himself up with monks, away from temptation of the great world outside. He taught no long-faced, gloomy theology. He taught the gospel of gladness and good cheer. His doctrines are touched with the sunlight, and flavored with the flowers of the fields. The birds of the air, the beasts of the field, and happy, romping children are in them. True piety is cheerful as the day.
Cranmer cheers his brother martyrs, and Latimer walks with a face shining with cheerfulness to the stake, upholds his fellow's spirits, and seasons all his sermons with pleasant anecdotes.
"Nothing will supply the want of sunshine to peaches," said Emerson, "and to make knowledge valuable, you must have the cheerfulness of wisdom."