CHAPTER VIII

The Tired Emphasis

“I AM so tired, so tired—­I go to bed tired, I get up tired, and I am tired all the time.”

How many women—­how many hundred women, how many thousand women—­say that to themselves and to others constantly.

It is perfectly true; they are tired all the time; they do go to bed tired and get up tired and stay tired all day.

If, however, they could only know how very much they increase their fatigue by their constant mental emphasis of it, and if at the same time they could turn their wills in the direction of decreasing the fatigue, instead of emphasizing it, a very large percentage of the tired feeling could be done away with altogether.

Many women would gladly make more of an effort in the direction of rest if they knew how, and I propose in this article to give a prescription for the cure of the tired emphasis which, if followed, will bring happy results.

When you go to bed at night, no matter how tired you feel, instead of thinking how tired you are, think how good it is that you can go to bed to get rested.

It will probably seem absurd to you at first.  You may say to yourself:  “How ridiculous, going to bed to get rested, when I have only one short night to rest in, and one or two weeks in bed would not rest me thoroughly.”

The answer to that is that if you have only one night in which to rest, you want to make the most of that night, and if you carry the tired emphasis to bed with you you are really holding on to the tired.

This is as practically true as if you stepped into a bog and then sat in it and looked forlorn and said.  “What a terrible thing it is that I should be in a bog like this; just think of having to sit in a black, muddy bog all the time,” and staying there you made no effort whatever to get out of it, even though there was dry land right in front of you.

Again you may answer:  “But in my tired bog there is no dry land in front of me, none at all.”

I say to that, there is much more dry land than you think—­if you will open your eyes—­and to open your eyes you must make an effort.

No one knows, who has not tried, what a good strong effort will do in the right direction, when we have been living and slipping back in the wrong direction.

The results of such efforts seem at times wonderful to those who have learned the right direction for the first time.

To get rid of the tired emphasis when we have been fixed in it, a very strong effort is necessary at first, and gradually it gets easier, and easier, until we have cast off the tired emphasis entirely and have the habit of looking toward rest.

We must say to ourselves with decision in so many words, and must think the meaning of the words and insist upon it:  “I am very tired.  Yes, of course, I am very tired, but I am going to bed to get rested.”