The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1898-06-25
DOES FRETT|NG PAY?
A Few Friendly Suggestions
to the Woman Who
Worries.
LIFT The MENTAL FOG
Perform Physical Work in
the Spirit Of Play--We man
Above Fretting.
LIFT THE MENTAL FOG

Does it pay to fret? This is a serious
question. In the old days, when there
force, a little fretting might be INDUCED
in with impunity. Our grandmothers
had a great deal of time between sunrise
and sunset. Their lives moved on direct
and simple lines. Their interests were, in
general, infinitely less complex than ours,
though equally real AND vital. The wom-
an who hung the same best silk gown on
the same hook in the closet for ten success
siye years, feeling all that time that she
had ample dress resource for great occa-
sions, had a distinct advantage.
The tuscan straw bonnet, done over ev-
cry season for an equally long period, pre-
sented few complications. The weekly
churchgoing and the occasional ~neighborly,
visit made small draft upon either time or
strength. Life thrust down deep roots
and was not top heavy. Vitality was bet
ter nourished han today. This is not say
ing that those days were preferable, but
for our new opportunities we must make
new conditions.
If the rooms are hotter, more comfort
able, we must go out of doors the oftener.
II our duties are more complex, more ex-
acting, more wearing, we must save where
aforetime we have been prodigal.
The biggest leak we have to mend ia
worry. We wake in the morning with a
sense of the cares, the work, the anxieties
of the dry. We make an ever deepening
rut for our own feet and persistently walk
in it. We were not made for this kind of
travelling, and we grow morbid, a word
that means everything disagreeable to
oneself and to ones intimates. There is
no doubt whatever that if we undertake
our own cure before it is too late, under
take it with might and main, we can come
into cheerful, hopeful, happy conditions.
The mind has its doors entirely under our
control if we but knew it. Shut the wor-
ry door; open the rest door. It can be
done. How rapidly all minor cares, eu
f~retfulness, all business, disappear at the
approach of a real troubled The fog yan-
ishes from the mental atmosphere. The
sky is blue save for the black cloud of sor-
row that, compared to the great cope, is
perhaps but a handbreadJh. When the
thunderbolt has fallen, the heavens clear.
We get glinpses of reality.
We have the power, I repeat, to make
clear skies for ourselves. Let any mother,
wife or housekeeper try with determination
W SUOp ul1luhl0B 02odRICcStOlcy wearing
thoughts. Let her make this trial for five
minutes, ten minutes, 10 minutes, a half
hour, an hour. If she tries honestly, she
will be astonished at the result. The fric-
ton of little worries is to the mental what
little sores are to the physical. What hap
pens if we keep opening these sores with
pin points? We can just as easily refrain
from his folly in the mental condition as
in the physical. 1t needs but knowledge
and will.
A true, noble thought is greatly helpful.
Persistently to think the noble thought
instead of the ignoble, for fault finding,
%fretful, regretful thoughts are ignoble, is
to open the gate to r~estfulness, to strength.
Physical work is immensely harder, more
devitalizing, when it is don under de-
pressing mental conditions. Look at the
work children do in play, b cooking,
washing, sewing of little girls for their
dolls. OF course this does not compare
with the work of their elders, but the
point is they do not consider it work at
all. Work lone in the play spirit is not
work. Can we not come more into that
spirit? Children are happy in~yoluntarily.
Cannot we be happy Voluntarily
With the increasing completely of our
life there AVE come new helps. Bright,
inspiring literature is in the reach of most
women. If one has not time to read, one
can snatch a sentence on the way to the
pantry, the dining room or the cook stove
and let it dissolve, as it were, in the mind,
cooling and healing the fretted parts. But
most housekeepers can get half an hour a
day for a book. A good novel read in this
economical fashion from day to day would
furnish a great deal of comfort, would
give the something to look forward to so
lamentably lacking in many women's
lives. The fact is, if we are being over
whelmed in the old paths, we must cut
new ones. If the earth is getting too
crowded, let us try the air. This Is per-
fectly practicable. Airships nav not yet
been perfected and adjusted to the atmos-
phere, but we all nave the power within
us of flying above our cares, our troubles,
our worries.
Especially have women this power. 10
may be latent, but it can be readily de-
veloped. 1t is a well known saying that
men and women have the defects of their
qualities. Women are delicate, tender,
generous, sensitive, sympathetic, enthusi-
astic. These spiritualized qualities suffer
in conditions where they do not have
scope. For her very nobleness woman is
punished. She must bear the defects of
her qualities when the qualities are turned
wrong side out, so to speak. Her hneness
should be used es a force, not as a weak
ness. The right of a woman to rise to
spiritual heights by reason OF her delicacy,
by lack of brutality, no one will question.
Here is her opportunity now in her home,
where she is terribly overweigLted. She
need not bear a feathers weight of worry.
She can rise above the frettino condition.
In the freedom that thus she produces her
best self will come forward; new powers
will develop.
Shut away the worries and see how life
looks observation-disclosures.
A Model Sickroom.