There is great danger that young girls who are delicate while growing up, and lounge around the house and lie down whenever they feel the least bit out of sorts, will form a habit of invalidism when they reach maturity.
How often do we see such girls "brace up" at once when anything happens which interests or excites them! An invitation to a reception or a ball, or any other pleasant social function, acts like a tonic. For the time being an instantaneous cure is effected. They are as well as anybody until after the entertainment.
Indulgent mothers are frequently to blame for this physical and mental laziness — for it is nothing more — on the part of their daughters. A lounge or sofa is a positive curse in many a house, because it is such a temptation to lie down and succumb to trifling suggestions of illness or the least indisposition. A habit of giving in whenever you "don't feel like it" is fatal to all achievement and ruinous to self-discipline, self-poise, and nobility and dignity of bearing.
When someone asked a noted opera singer if she was ever sick and unable to fill her engagements, she replied: "No, we singers cannot afford to be sick. We must fill our engagements; we are not rich enough to give up."
Actors and actresses, as well as singers, are compelled by the necessities of their profession to set aside personal feelings and keep faith with the public, no matter whether they are well or not. They simply cannot spare themselves even when they are really sick, not to speak of giving way to moods or fancied ailments. What would become of their reputations, their careers, if they should fail to appear in public every time they "don't feel like it”?
What is the result of this compulsion upon actors and singers to conquer moods and feelings? Is it not well known that, in spite of the exacting nature of their duties, the late hours they are obliged to keep, the constant wear on the mental and physical faculties, if they take proper care of their health, they retain youth and vitality to a far more advanced age than men and women in other callings? Joseph Jefferson, Denman Thompson, Adelina Patti, Sarah Bernhardt, and many others of the past and present might be cited as examples.
The body is like an easy-going horse that will become lazy and jog along in an indolent, slouching gait if not kept up to "standards" and "style" by its coachman. If the mind, the driver of the body, lets the reins hang loose and allows the body to follow its inclinations, standards will soon be lowered.
No one feels "up to concert pitch" all the time, and it is necessary to train oneself to keep at his task whether he likes it or not.
What if the businessman who is compelled to work all day, and who has neither time nor opportunity to coddle himself whether he feels well or not, should become the slave of whims and fancies? Supposing he should say to himself, “I am liable to be ill this summer so I am going to prepare for the worst. I shall have a couch put into my office so that I can lie down when I feel seedy, and I’ll lay in a stock of medicine so as to be ready for any emergency.” A common-sense businessman would consider it a disgrace to even think of such a thing. He knows perfectly well that if he were to act in that way his business would soon "go to the dogs." He knows, also, from experience that it is not necessary to give up every time he "don't feel like it."
Suppose that a general should find his soldiers lounging about the camp, lying under the trees and taking it easy, and many of them not feeling like drilling and should decide to wait until they should all feel like it. What kind of an army would he have? What kind of discipline? The men must fall into line and commence the drill on the appointed minute whether they feel like it or not; if they are positively sick, they must go to the hospital; but they must either be in the hospital, sick enough to be under a doctor's care, or they must drill.
The world is a camp. We are all soldiers under the command of a Supreme General who expects us to be on drill every day unless we are actually disabled.
The moment you allow yourself to be governed by your moods and fancies you open the door to a host of enemies to your health, success, and happiness. Don't under any circumstances sympathize with sick, diseased, or lazy thoughts. If you once yield to such thoughts before you know it you may be their slave.
Some people actually attract illness to themselves by constantly thinking about it. They feel sure that if they should happen to get their feet wet, they would soon be sick with pneumonia or influenza. If they happen to be in a draught for a few minutes, they are confident that dire results will follow. They will have chills or sore throat. If they cough a little, they have dreadful visions of consumption. Is it not in the family? They thus fix images of sickness in the mind and so lessen its power of resistance to disease and make the body more susceptible to the very things they fear.
A conviction that we should be master of ourselves under all conditions would protect us from many of the ills to which we fall easy victims. If we think diseased thoughts, we attract disease. If we think healthy thoughts, we attract health.
The best safeguard you can throw around yourself is a determination that you will be master of yourself, — that you will not be dictated to by moods or whims or fancies of any kind. You will find that if you expect great things of yourself, if you always exact a high standard and accept no apologies or excuses from Mr. Liver, Mr. Stomach, Mr. Nerve, or Mr. Head, your health will be better and you will accomplish infinitely more than if you allow your feelings to hold you in subjection.
It does not take a great deal of practice to be able to throw off any ordinary symptom of indisposition by holding firmly in the mind the opposite thought, — health and cheerfulness. Insist that you will not give up; and that you will do your day's work to the best of your ability, and it is probable that, before the day is half done, you will feel better. This is not theoretical; it is scientific.
We all know people who have fallen into a habit of never feeling well. No matter how soundly they sleep, how good their appetites, or how healthy they appear to be, every inquiry in regard to their condition receives the same stereotyped, depressing answer conveyed in a dismal voice, — "Not very well," "About the same," or "Not so well." These are the people who “enjoy poor health.” The only subject of conversation in which they take any interest is themselves. They never weary of discussing their symptoms. They will dilate by the hour on the attack of indigestion, the peculiar sensations which they feel in their heads, stomachs, or backs, or the shooting pains in various parts of their bodies.
Like sailors who tell their "yarns" so often that they really come to believe them themselves, these people dwell so persistently on their fancied or merely temporary petty ailments that they take it for granted that all their imaginings about themselves must be true.
The ailing habit is especially active during spring and summer. When the weather changes and the temperature becomes more variable, the chronic ailers take it for granted that they are not going to feel so well, and so they prepare mentally and physically for the worst. The moment they experience the slightest debility from the warm weather they begin to try new remedies and to complain more than ever before; and the more they coddle themselves and the more they complain the less they feel like doing anything. All day long they lounge on sofas or recline in easy chairs. The mind sympathizes with the posture of the body; the recumbent or lolling attitude quickly reacts upon the mentality, and standards all drop.
If you ever expect to amount to anything in the world you should resist an inclination to loll or lounge around as you would a temptation to any other evil tendency. You can never make the most of yourself if you succumb to the lounging habit. It is so insidious that, almost before you are aware of it, it will sap your ambition and lessen your chances of success. Compel yourself to get up, to brace up, and to keep up to your proper standard whether you feel like it or not.
Have no fellowship with slouchy, slipshod, "don't feel like it" moods. Drive them all away from you as you would drive a thief from your house.
How can you expect to be healthy and robust physically and mentally when you are half the time in a lazy, horizontal attitude? Until you arouse yourself and act as if you were a vertebrate animal, you will be neither healthy nor successful. You cannot accomplish good work until you put yourself in the attitude of achievement. You cannot have confidence in your ability to do things while your mental and physical standards are low.
Self-confidence has a great deal to do with one's health.
If, for instance, you have anything of importance to do, and if failure to do it would mean a great loss to you, you would not allow any ordinary feeling of indisposition to prevent its accomplishment. The conviction that you must do a thing, the belief that you can and your determination to do it at all hazards have a great deal to do with the suppression of mental or physical discords.
The influence of expecting yourself to do a good day's work and demanding it of yourself works like magic. It is a powerful tonic.
Remember that your resisting power, that innate force, which was given you for self-protection, is your safe-guard not only against mental but also against physical ills.
The moment a fighting general and his army give up they are beaten. The moment your will capitulates, — the moment you admit to yourself that you are going to be captured by the enemy, — you have laid down your arms and virtually surrendered.
A habit of asserting stoutly and defiantly your determination to do a good day's work every day of your life, unless positively sick, will accomplish more for you than all the sanitariums in the world.
How many, who were really life-long invalids, seldom free from bodily suffering, have achieved remarkable success! Charles Darwin, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Herbert Spencer, Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Samuel Johnson, Dr. Kane, the explorer, and many others, more or less eminent, conquered real physical ills in order to pursue their work. If those people had waited for a favorable mood until they felt like it, they would probably never have accomplished anything of note. If the men and women who have pushed civilization up from savagery had dropped their work every time they “did not feel like it,” where would the world be today?
This matter of feeling well or ill, or of working or not working, is largely a question of mental dominion.
The writer knows a physician's wife, a very estimable lady, who has been subject for years to occasional severe attacks of headache which last for three or four days. While these attacks last, she is completely prostrated. She says, however, that, when anything of supreme importance makes it imperative that she should fulfil the duties of her position, she is always able to postpone an attack, sometimes for days at a time.
Now, if anyone can postpone a sick headache or other ailment for days at a time in order to attend some special function, is it not reasonable to suppose that it could be postponed indefinitely?
When Douglas Jerrold was told by his physician that he must die, he replied: "What, and leave a family of helpless children? I won’t die.” His resolution helped him over the crisis, and he lived many years longer. The way to be well is to think health-thoughts.
Determine that you will have nothing to do with abnormities of any kind. Resolve that you will keep yourself up to a high standard mentally, morally, and physically and that you will always be ready to take hold of the duty which lies nearest with vigor and determination.
Do not allow yourself to get into the way of staying at home whenever you do not feel like going to your office, store, or place of business. Oftentimes, especially during summer, the temptation is very strong in the morning, when one feels languid or lazy from the heat, to say to oneself, “Well, I don't feel like it today. I think I shall take it easy and let things take care of themselves until I am up to the mark.” Now this is just the encouragement the lazy body wants, and you cannot afford to let the temptation conquer you. You must always be master of the situation, and, when your faculties and functions are like soldiers who do not care to drill, but whose duty is to do so, you must assume the office of commanding general.
Don't allow yourself to become a slave to the miserable little absorbers of your health and happiness. Every time a diseased thought, a thought inimical to your health or achievement comes to you, expel it at once. Don't stop to discuss, or weigh, or consider it. Drive it off if it is not a friend and replace it by a strong, healthy, beautiful thought. If you persist in this course, you will fill your mind with hosts of health thoughts, beauty thoughts, and achievement thoughts which will make you physically and mentally vigorous, successful, and happy.