Talking of One's Ailments by
J.R. Miller Some people seem to enjoy
being miserable. At least they make far more of
life's discomforts than of its pleasant things. They say very
little about their mercies, but a great deal about their miseries.
When you meet them some bright morning and ask, How are you
to-day? You will have to listen to a
long recital of personal ills, and you will escape well if you
are not favoured also with a dismal catalogue of the distresses and
sufferings of all the members of your friend's family. You
learn, by and by, if you are a busy person, not to make inquiries
which will lead to such extended confessions of wretchedness.
These people seem to think there is some sort of merit in having
ailments or afflictions to speak of to others. It appears to them
to be an altogether undesirable and unworthy state to be in,
when they can say that they are very well, with nothing to complain
of. They appear to be happy only
when something is wrong with them, so that they can make appeal
to the sympathy of their friends. What is the real secret of the
commonness, the almost universality, of this habit of mind? For it
must be confessed that there are comparatively few people
with whom one meets who are not addicted to this unwholesome
way of talking about their ills and ailments, whether real or
imaginary. What is the motive for it? Why
does it appear to give so much pleasure? Is it prompted by an
unhealthy craving for sympathy? One who is always well, and who
never complains, is not commiserated. Nobody says, How pale you look! I am very sorry you are such
a sufferer. And many people seem to find
great comfort in being pitied in this way. They would rather
have others speak to them of their ailments than of their
fine health. But the best that can be said
about such a craving is that it is miserably unwholesome. It is exaggerated selfishness,
too, which takes delight in burdening others with the recital of all
one's little bodily pains or discomforts. How many hours one
lay awake last night! What a hard cough one has! How
one's head ached all the morning! Now one suffers from rheumatism
or neuralgia, how one's digestion has been bad for a week, and
the endless catalogue of ills to which flesh is heir. Suppose
you did have a restless night, or did cough for hours, or were
nervous, or suppose you have pains in your back or in your
head, or have a heavy cold? Why must you go over all the
details of your wretchedness, in talking with any one you can
get, to listen to the recital? What good comes of speaking about
these unpleasant things? The fact is, that people do not
like to hear such unwholesome complaining, unless they are
given to the same morbid habit themselves, and can get you to
listen sympathetically to their story, which they will probably
try to make more morbid than yours. There really is no virtue
in being miserable. It is far better to be well and
strong, than, even if one has actual infirmities, aches, or
disorders of any kind, one has no right to display them before
others. One would far better endure the
discomfort silently, and to be sweet, brave, and cheerful in
the presence of one's friends and neighbors. It is immeasurably
better to talk about the ten thousand comforts, blessings,
and pleasures of one's life, than about the few pains and
miseries. It is better for one's self,
for we are building character out of our habits, and we would
better build into our life the gold and silver and precious
stones of good cheer, than the wood, hay, and stubble of miserable
morbidity. It is better, too, for the world,
for it has real troubles enough of its own, and needs far more
our songs than our sorrows. A writer gives this incident,
which is in the line of what has been written. The principal
of a girls' school once administered an effective rebuke to a pupil
who was always complaining of her ailments. This student came
to school one morning whining about a dreadful cold. The teacher
said cheerfully, Oh, I'm so glad you have one. Naturally, the
girl was astonished, but the wise woman continued, Why shouldn't
I be glad? You are always doing something
to make yourself ill, so, of course, you must enjoy it, and
I am happy to have you pleased. This stinging sarcasm opened
the girl's eyes to the knowledge that she herself was responsible
to a large extent, for her own bodily conditions, and that it
was a reflection upon her intelligence as well as her conscience thus
to ignore the laws of physical health. No sane person ever points
with pride to the existence in himself of mental defects arising
from neglect of intellectual culture. Yet it is nothing uncommon
for one to pose as an object of sympathy when ill from failure
to exercise common sense in simple matters of diet and exercise. Moreover, it is an offence against
good breeding to parade one's distempers before others. Emerson
says on this subject, If you have not slept well, or if you
have a headache, or a leprosy, or any other ailment, I beseech
you to hold your peace. There is a better way. It is
to seal one's lips resolutely upon all words of complaining
about oneself, all talking about one's discomforts or ailments.
Nobody is really interested in such recital. No one enjoys listening
to it. Even those who patiently hear
your anguishing tale do so only out of amiable courtesy. Speak
only of the bright and cheerful things in your life. Tell others
of your thousand mercies, and not of your one or two miseries. Find the pleasant things, and
talk of these, rather than of the painful things. You have
no right to add to the world's disquietude by pouring out your
story of woes, whether real or imagined. Give out cheer and
gladness instead, and breathe out song. It is said of a beautiful
Christian woman, beside her coffin, that wherever she went, the air
was sweeter after she had gone by. It is such an influence we
should all seek to leave behind us, wherever we go. To do this,
we must train ourselves to deny our own selfishness, to repress
our discontents, to bear in silence the trials and sufferings of
our life. To endure, in sweet patience,
the things that are disagreeable and unpleasant, and to give out
to others, and to the world, only sweetness and light, however
keen our own pain, or heavy our burden.