There, indeed, the woe of the suspicious is shown.  His minutes are really “damned;” peace flies his heart, rest from his couch, sanity from his throne, and, yielding himself, he becomes filled with murderous anger and imperils his salvation here and hereafter.

CHAPTER XXI

THE WORRIES OF IMPATIENCE

How many of our worries come from impatience?  We do not want to wait until the fruition of our endeavors comes naturally, until the time is ripe, until we are ready for that which we desire.  We wish to overrule conditions which are beyond our power; we fail to accept the inevitable with a good grace; we refuse to believe in our circumscriptions, our limitations, and in our arrogance and pride express our anger, our indignation, our impatience.

I have seen people whose auto has broken down, worried fearfully because they would not arrive somewhere as they planned, and in their impatient fretfulness they annoyed, angered, and upset all around them, without, in one single degree, improving their own condition or hastening the repair of the disaster.  What folly; what more than childish foolishness.

A child may be excused for its impatience and petulance for it has not yet learned the inevitable facts of life—­such as that breaks must be repaired, tires must be made so that they will not leak, and that the gasoline tank cannot be empty if the machine is to run.  But a man, a woman, is supposed to have learned these incontrovertible facts, and should, at the same time, have learned acquiesence in them.

A train is delayed; one has an important engagement; worry seems inevitable and excusable.  But is it?  Where is the use?  Will it replace the destroyed bridge, renew the washed out track, repair the broken engine?  How much better to submit to the inevitable with graceful acceptance of the fact, than to fret, stew, worry, and at the same time, irritate everyone around you.

How serenely Nature rebukes the impatience of the fretful worrier.  A man plants corn, wheat, barley, potatoes—­or trees, that take five, seven years to come to bearing, such as the orange, olive, walnut, date, etc.  Let him fret ever so much, worry all he likes, chafe and fret every hour; let him go and dig up his seeds or plants to urge their upgrowing; let him even swear in his impatient worry and threaten to smash all his machinery, discharge his men, and turn his stock loose; Nature goes on her way, quietly, unmoved, serenely, unhurried, undisturbed by the folly of the one creature of earth who is so senseless as to worry—­viz., man.

Many a man’s hair has turned gray, and many a woman’s brow and cheeks have become furrowed because of fretful, impatient worry over something that could not be changed, or hastened, or improved.

My conception of life is that manhood, womanhood, should rise superior to any and all conditions and circumstances.  Whatever happens, Spirit should be supreme, superior, in control.  And until we learn that lesson, life, so far, has failed.  Inasmuch as we do learn it, life has become a success.