Yes, but you should also see those worn-out nerve cells.
Misdirected ambition, a forgetfulness that she had only a certain amount of nervous power, an excitement which blinded her to her real condition; these were the factors which made her drive her motor far beyond its powers. Finally there was no more nervous energy to move her over-developed muscles without fatigue, and fatigue has its own poisons which penetrate the whole body and then comes a collapse. This was the cause for this “strong girl’s” nervous breakdown.
No girl is strong, or ever will be as a woman, whose body and muscles have been developed at the expense of her nervous system. The really strong girl is one who has power saved up, and when a time of great stress or work comes, has this extra power to put out and not become a nervous bankrupt.
Exercise, like your daily work, should always be a pleasure instead of boresome labor. Only by doing things in this state of mind can you ever be successful.
The drilling, training and developing of the will—powers of self-control—must be a constant part of a girl’s self-education. It is all very well to tell a girl to “use will power,” but before she is blamed for the lack of control, it would be only just to her to find out just how much of this power she has to use.
Will power depends upon a perfect nervous system. The reason one cannot call to a will power to stop an evil or disagreeable habit, is because the habit has temporarily destroyed, or rather put to sleep, the power to will. If there has not been, in the beginning, a well-drilled self-control—or will power—how can you expect a girl who flies off into an unreasonable temper, to immediately control this temper and keep it under control?
The will power is the rudder of life; the steering control over our human ship as it voyages on the seas of life. Now if a ship should go to sea without a rudder, you know just what would happen to it. If it goes on a voyage with a weak rudder, or one which has been damaged and not repaired, the best sailor in the world cannot keep it off the rocks when a storm comes.
It is just so with our brains and bodies; they must be controlled by a strong and well-attached rudder, the will power. With such a power one can accomplish wonders; in fact, everything that seems marvelous to us in man’s work has been due to perfect steering of right impulses into new harbors where an unsteady human ship would be wrecked in trying to pass the hidden rocks and roaring reefs.