Editorial November 20, 1915 Issue

Thinking Rightly

Archibald McLellan

It is gratifying to note, as a sign of the times, that many people are recognizing not only the futility but also the harmfulness and bad taste of indulging one of the stock subjects of general conversation, namely, descriptions of the ills "that flesh is heir to." The Ladies' Home Journal is doing its share toward forwarding this reform, and we gladly quote from its November editorial page as follows: —

I wish we were all Christian Scientists (one moment—this sentence isn't finished yet) in one respect: that we would cease from discussing our ills and ails either with one another or in public. Whatever else we may accept of the doctrines of Christian Science is an affair personal to each one of us. But the personal line is crossed when some one in a company from which we cannot extricate ourselves or in a public place where we cannot help listening begins, step by step, to describe the symptoms of a personal ill or to relate the gruesome details of an operation. It is not necessary that we shall be unsympathetic with persons who are in physical trouble, but neither is it incumbent upon us to be forced to listen to a detailed narration of those troubles, and they should not be inflicted upon us. It may not be an agreeable truth to realize, but it is a fact nevertheless that, excepting those who are very close to us, our friends are not interested in our ill health. When we are asked the perfunctory salutation, "How are you feeling?" it is not meant that, like pulling a bung out of a barrel, we shall pour out upon the inquirer a stream of our physical ills and ails. Besides the injustice to others, there is the harm to ourselves of allowing the mind to rest upon the ills of the body. If more of us could realize that the body will be healthy about in proportion as we keep the mind happy, there would be fewer aches and pains talked about. ... A happy mind is the best doctor that exists for the body, and conversely a mind always centered on the pains that exist, tends not only to make those pains worse but to prolong them, and by their prolongation to bring about others. A chronic condition of ill health has been brought about in many an instance by thinking or talking about it too much.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Editorial

Evil Has No Cycle