The Washington herald., 1917-01-19
The Secret Of Happiness
Nv oRIsoN SWEET MARDEN,
Don't worry

boh WHY
This, in brief, is the advice of the
Public Health Service in Washington
to all who wish to conserve their
health and lcngthen their lives.
Worry breeds nervous diseases
and other life strangers and in an eff
fort to combat its ravages the Public
Health Service recently issued a bull
letin, in which it says:
$50 far as is known, no bird ever
tried to build more nests than its
neighbor No fox ever fretted be-
cause he had only one hole in which
to hide. No squirrel ever died of
anxiety lest he should not lay by
enough nuts for two winters instead
of for one, and no dog ever lost any
sleep over the fact that he did not
have enough bones laid aside for his
declining years.
Conscious or semi-conscious fears,
worries and anxieties act like slow
poison in the human system. They
deteriorate the cell life of the body,
encourage the development of latent
disease tendencies and lessen the
disease-resisting power by under
mining the barrier Nature has put
between ourselves and our disease
enemies. In short, fear and worry
tear down the health bulwarks of
men and women and expose their
citadel of life to the enemy's fire.
Long continued anxiety, a chronic
state of fear and worry, produce
cancer, liver and kidney troubles,
dyspepsia, and innumerable other
physical ills, besides the larger num-
Der of the worlds mental ills.
The great secret of happines is
not to worry, but to have faith, to
take life philosophically and not to
anticipate trouble. If worry and its
twin brother, fear, could be banished
from our lives we would take a long
step toward the millennium. There
are plenty of unfortunate things that
do happen, without borrowing trou-
BILE. Most people are made unhappy
all their lives through anticipating
things that never happen. We suffer
infinitely more from anticipated trou-
bles and misfortunes than from the
things which actually happen.
I know of an old married couple
who have suffered all their lives from
dread of impending poverty, a
haunting fear that they would ulti-
mateiy go to the poor house. AL
though these people are not rich,
they have never wanted for anything,
nor are they likely to. Most of their
suffering has come from anticipation.
Most lives are cut short by years
because of worries about what never
happened.
Rich and poor alike are victims
of this unreasonable fear OF lack of
means, as all panics show, for it is
the wealthy men whose withdrawal
of cash from business and banks dis
turbs public credit.
OF course not all of US anticipate
financial shortages. There are many
who, though not dependent, do
not worry over money matters. In
stead they let the poison of worry
feast and fatten on some other OBJ
session
The man or the woman who is
constantly afraid of some impending
evil, always anticipating something
that will work to his or her injury,
or who is worrying about something
that has already happened, denies the
existence of God. Such a fear
stricken, worrying soul shows by his
mental attitude that he does not be-
lieve in the great Divine Cause, in
the immortal principle that never
dies. He lacks confidence in that
Power that creates, preserves, up
holds the universe.
The worrying soul is constantly
tearing down, destroying his own
life and happiness, for it is a we'll
established fact that every brain and
nerve cell-every cell in the body
reflects the state of mind We are
glad or sad, depressed or joyous, in
harmony or in discord, according to
the influences which are operating
on the mind. Fear and worry not
only destroy happiness, but seriously
injure the brain cells, sometimes be-
yond repair. The supply of nerve
nutriment is cut off, and all the nor
nal processes of the body are dis
arranged and disordered.
The government bulletin against
worry is good. But better than any
remedy ] know of for the curing of
this universal evil, is the daily repeti-
tion-for aggravated cases of worry,
the constant repetition-of the twen-