AN INDICATION.
Just as there is a pride that apes humility, so there is an egotism that apes selfishness, a cowardice that apes stoicism and an indolence that apes effort. This is especially apparent in matters pertaining to health.
How often, on the plea of not causing worry or expense to others, does a man or woman not put off taking necessary rest, or consulting a doctor, until a slight ailment that once would have yielded to treatment becomes an irreparable injury.
Such conduct is often admired as unselfish, but for unselfishness and stoicism a psychologist would read fear, indolence and egotism. Fear of being thought hypochondriacal and fear of facing facts; shrinking from the exertion involved in the effort to become healthy and from the pain involved in witnessing the possible distress and anxiety of friends should the complaint prove serious—regardless of the fact that its neglect and resultant incurability would cause infinitely more distress; above all, that mental egotism which breeds in its victim an unreadiness to acknowledge that he does not know what may be wrong and to take prompt steps to remedy his ignorance.
It is not fair, of course, to attach too much blame to the patient. Such faults as those cited above are in themselves symptoms of nervous disease. Body and mind act and react upon one another. Nevertheless, the practice of the virtues loses its meaning when there is no pull in the opposite direction.—[Eds.]
IMAGINATION IN INSURANCE.
Regular readers will recognise in this article a continuation of the series previously entitled “Healthy Brains.” The author of “The Children All Day Long” is an intimate disciple of one of the greatest living psychologists, and she has a message of the first importance to all who realise that true health depends as much on poise of mind as on physical fitness.
It is an unpleasant subject, but have you ever faced the fact that your widow might be left in poverty?
We all know the phrases that come so glibly from the lips of the insurance agent. Perhaps the very fact that it pays companies to spend thousands a year on the salaries of agents, and other thousands on broadcast eye-catching advertisements, shows that there are many things which our imagination only accepts “against the grain.” Fire, storm, loss by theft or burglary, sickness, disablement and death we do not, by choice, dwell on these things in thought.
Now some people are inclined to pet this impulse of turning away. “Do not think dark thoughts,” they tell us, “the best insurance is unconsciousness, insouciance, denial. Misfortune will pass you by if you do not look for it.”