Some constructive rules for daily living, beautifully stated, have been left by Dr. Austen F. Riggs, "Just Nerves," Houghton Mifflin Co. They especially relate to phases of mental hygiene, in which field he excelled. The following are arranged selections.
I. "Make clean-cut practical decisions. Decisions must be valued, not as irrevocable oaths or unretractable contracts, but as mere decisions, subject to change in the face of new facts or additional knowledge.
2. "Be efficient in what you do.... It is really no more than gently culling from the stream of thought that which is interesting and relevant to the object of the moment, and secondarily discarding all else. Above all, it is not a violent, sustained moral effort. Find out how easily you can do things well, and take pride in such skill.
3. "Do one thing at a time. Only thus can we practice concentration. I do not mean that violent overdramatization of effort..., but the gentle art of controlling the attention.
4. "Do not accept hurry as a necessary part of modern life. . . . Quality of work, not quantity, spells success, and quality is destroyed by hurry.
5. "Neither run away from emotions nor yet fight them. Accept them as the wellsprings of all action. They are your automatically mobilized energies, and you may, within very wide limits, do with them what you choose. Force these energies into channels of your choice. It is like guiding spirited horses—you guide, they obey.
6. "Keep work, play, rest, and exercise in their proper relative proportions ; not only in the space of decades, but year by year, month by month, week by week, day by day. Keep these items separated. Work when you work; play when you play; and do nothing when you rest. Each item has its daily place, and a well-planned life is a life made up of well-planned days. Such a life absorbs emergencies without strain.
7. "The worst enemy of efficiency, as well as the best ally of nervousness, is worry. Worry is a complete circle of inefficient thought whirling about a pivot of fear. To avoid it, consider whether the problem in hand is your business. If it is not, turn to something that is. If it is your business, decide whether it is your business now. If it be your business and your business now, decide what is the wisest and most efficient thing to do about it. If you know, get busy and do it ; if you do not know, seek the knowledge you need, and seek it now. Do these things; . . . then rest your case on the determination that no matter how hard things may turn out to be, you will make the best of them—and more than that no man can do. In short; common sense can put worry out of the running in most cases, but always faith is essential to real victory.
8. "This problem of ours, reduced to its common denominator, is to keep our ideal clear, to adopt purposes which shall serve these ideals, and lastly to make our ideals live in practical, purposive everyday action.... The 'divine unrest' of ambition is a noble spur to better action, but the restlessness of discontent is a miserable state of misunderstanding. Beware the contrary currents of anger, fear, and pride, but turn the strength of these currents into the channels of your purposes."
