Excerpts from
The Freedom of Life
by Annie Payson Call
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Description
1915. Annie Payson Call was a
notable Waltham author in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Contents: The Freedom of Life; How to Sleep Restfully; Resistance;
Hurry, Worry, and Irritability; Nervous Fears; Self-Consciousness; The
Circumstances of Life; Other People; Human Sympathy; Personal
Independence; Self-Control; The Religion of It; About Christmas; and To
Mothers.
INTRODUCTION
INTERIOR
freedom rests upon the principle of non-resistance to all the things
which seem evil or painful to our natural love of self. But
non-resistance alone can accomplish nothing good unless, behind it,
there is a strong love for righteousness and truth. By refusing to
resist the ill will of others, or the stress of circumstances, for the
sake of greater usefulness and a clearer point of view, we deepen our
conviction of righteousness as the fundamental law of fife, and broaden
our horizon so as to appreciate varying and opposite points of view.
The only non-resistance that brings this power is the kind which yields
mere personal and selfish considerations for the sake of principles.
Selfish and weak yielding must always do harm. Unselfish yielding, on
the other hand, strengthens the will and increases strength of purpose
as the petty obstacles of mere self-love are removed. Concentration
alone cannot long remain wholesome, for it needs the light of growing
self-knowledge to prevent its becoming self-centred. Yielding alone is
of no avail, for in itself it has no constructive power. But if we try
to look at ourselves as we really are, we shall find great strength in
yielding where only our small and private interests are concerned, and
concentrating upon living the broad principles of righteousness which
must directly or indirectly affect all those with whom we come into
contact.
Chapter 1
The
Freedom of Life
"I
AM so tired I must give up work," said a young woman with a very
strained and tearful face; and it seemed to her a desperate state, for
she was dependent upon work for her bread and butter. If she gave up
work she gave up bread and butter, and that meant starvation. When she
was asked why she did not keep at work and learn to do it without
getting so tired, that seemed to her absurd, and she would have laughed
if laughing had been possible.
"I
tell you the work
has tired me so that I cannot stand it, and you ask me to go back and
get rest out of it when I am ready to die of fatigue. Why don't you ask
me to burn myself, on a piece of ice, or freeze myself with a red-hot
poker?"
"But,"
the answer was,
"it is not the work that tires you at all, it is the way you do it;"
and, after a little soothing talk which quieted the overexcited nerves,
she began to feel a dawning intelligence, which showed her that, after
all, there might be life in the work which she had come to look upon as
nothing but slow and painful death. She came to understand that she
might do her work as if she were working very lazily, going from one
thing to another with a feeling as near to entire indifference as she
could cultivate, and, at the same time, do it well. She was shown by
illustrations how she might walk across the room and take a book off
the table as if her life depended upon it, racing and pushing over the
floor, grabbing the book and clutching it until she got back to her
seat, or, how she might move with exaggerated laziness take the book up
loosely, and drag herself back again. This illustration represents two
extremes, and one, in itself, is as bad as the other; but, when the
habit has been one of unnecessary strain and effort, the lazy way,
practised for a time, will not only be very restful, but will
eventually lead to movement which is quick as well.
To
take another
example, you may write holding the pen with much more force than is
needful, tightening your throat and tongue at the same time, or you may
drag your pen along the paper and relieve the tendency to tension in
your throat and tongue by opening your mouth slightly and letting your
jaw hang loosely. These again are two extremes, but, if the habit has
been one of tension, a persistent practice of the extreme of looseness
will lead to a quiet mode of writing in which ten pages can be finished
with the effort it formerly took to write one.
Sometimes
the habit of
needless strain has taken such a strong hold that the very effort to
work quietly seems so unnatural as to cause much nervous suffering. To
turn the corner from a bad habit into a true and wholesome one is often
very painful, but, the first pain worked through, the right habit grows
more and more easy, until finally the better way carries us along and
we take it involuntarily.
For
the young woman
who felt she had come to the end of her powers, it was work or die;
therefore, when she had become rested enough to see and understand at
all, she welcomed the idea that it was not her work that tired her, but
the way in which she did it, and she listened eagerly to the directions
that should teach her to do it with less fatigue, and, as an
experiment, offered to go back and try the "lazy way" for a week. At
the end of a week she reported that the "lazy way" had rested her
remarkably, but she did not do her work so well. Then she had to learn
that she could keep more quietly and steadily concentrated upon her
work, doing it accurately and well, without in the least interfering
with the "lazy way." Indeed, the better concentrated we are, the more
easily and restfully we can work, for concentration does not mean
straining every nerve and muscle toward our work, -- it means dropping
everything that interferes, and strained nerves and muscles
constitute a very bondage of interference.
The
young woman went
back to her work for another week's experiment, and this time returned
with a smiling face, better color, and a new and more quiet life in her
eyes. She had made the "lazy way" work, and found a better power of
concentration at the same time. She knew that it was only a beginning,
but she felt secure now in the certain knowledge that it was not her
work that had been killing her, but the way in which she had done it;
and she felt confident of her power to do it restfully and, at the same
time, better than before. Moreover, in addition to practising the new
way of working, she planned to get regular exercise in the open air,
even if it had to come in the evening, and to eat only nourishing food.
She has been at work now for several years, and, at last accounts, was
still busy, with no temptation to stop because of overfatigue.
If
any
reader is
conscious of suffering now from the strain of his work and would like
to get relief, the first thing to do is to notice that it is less the
work that tires him than his way of doing it, and the attitude of his
mind toward it. Beginning with that conviction, there comes at first an
interest in the process of dropping strain and then a new interest in
the work itself, and a healthy concentration in doing the merest
drudgery as well as it can be done, makes the drudgery attractive and
relieves one from the oppressive fatigue of uninteresting monotony.
If
you
have to move
your whole body in your daily work, the first care should be to move
the feet and legs heavily. Feel as if each foot weighed a ton, and each
hand also; and while you work take long, quiet breaths, -- breaths such
as you see a man taking when he is very quietly and soundly sleeping.
If
the
work is
sedentary, it is a help before starting in the morning to drop your
head forward very loosely, slowly and heavily, and raise it very
slowly, then take a long, quiet breath. Repeat this several times until
you begin to feel a sense of weight in your head. If there is not time
in the morning, do it at night and recall the feeling while you are
dressing or while you are going to work, and then, during your work,
stop occasionally just to feel your head heavy and then go on. Very
soon you become sensitive to the tension in the back of your neck and
drop it without stopping work at all.
Long,
quiet breaths
while you work are always helpful. If you are working in bad air, and
cannot change the air, it is better to try to have the breaths only
quiet and gentle, and take long, full breaths whenever you are
out-of-doors and before going to sleep at night.
Of
course, a strained
way of working is only one cause of nervous fatigue; there are others,
and even more important ones, that need to be understood in order that
we may be freed from the bondage of nervous strain which keeps so many
of us from our best use and happiness.
Many
people are in
bondage because of doing wrong, but many more because of doing right in
the wrong way. Real freedom is only found through obedience to law, and
when, because of daily strain, a man finds himself getting overtired
and irritable, the temptation is to think it easier to go on working in
the wrong way than to make the effort to learn how to work in the right
way. At first the effort seems only to result in extra strain, but, if
persisted in quietly, it soon becomes apparent that it is leading to
less and less strain, and finally to restful work.
There
are laws for
rest, laws for work, and laws for play, which, if we find and follow
them, lead us to quiet, useful lines of life, which would be impossible
without them. They are the laws of our own being, and should carry us
as naturally as the instincts of the animals carry them, and so enable
us to do right in the right way, and make us so sure of the manner in
which we do our work that we can give all our attention to the work
itself; and when we have the right habit of working, the work itself
must necessarily gain, because we can put the best of ourselves into it.
It
is
helpful to think
of the instincts of the beasts, how true and orderly they are, on their
own plane, and how they are only perverted when the animals have come
under the influence of man. Imagine Baloo, the bear in Mr. Kipling's
"Jungle Book," being asked how he managed to keep so well and rested.
He would look a little surprised and say: "Why, I follow the laws of my
being. How could I do differently?" Now that is just the difference
between man and beast. Man can do differently. And man has done
differently now for so many generations that not one in ten thousand
really recognizes what the laws of his being are, except in ways so
gross that it seems as if we had sunken to the necessity of being
guided by a crowbar, instead of steadily following the delicate
instinct which is ours by right, and so voluntarily accepting the
guidance of the Power who made us, which is the only possible way to
freedom.
Of
course the laws of
a man's being are infinitely above the laws of a beast's. The laws of a
man's being are spiritual, and the animal in man is meant to be the
servant of his soul. Man's true guiding instincts are in his soul, --
he can obey them or not, as he chooses; but the beast's instincts are
in his body, and he has no choice but to obey. Man can, so to speak,
get up and look down on himself. He can be his own father and his own
mother. From his true instinct he can say to himself, "you must do
this" or "You must not do that." He can see and understand his tendency
to disobedience, and he can force himself to obey. Man can see
the good and wholesome animal instincts in himself that lead to lasting
health and strength, and he can make them all the good servants of his
soul. He can see the tendency to overindulgence, and how it leads to
disease and to evil, and he can refuse to permit that wrong tendency to
rule him.
Every
man has his own
power of distinguishing between right and wrong, and his own power of
choosing which way he shall follow. He is left free to choose God's way
or to choose his own. Through past and present perversions, of natural
habit he has lost the delicate power of distinguishing the normal from
the abnormal, and needs to be educated back to it. The benefit of this
education is an intelligent consciousness of the laws of life, which
not only adds to his own strength of mind and body, but increases
immeasurably his power of use to others. Many customs of to-day fix and
perpetuate abnormal habits to such an extent that, combined with our
own selfish inheritances and personal perversions, they dim the light
of our minds so that many of us are working all the time in a fog, more
or less dense, of ignorance and bondage. When a man chooses the right
and refuses the wrong, in so far as he sees it, he becomes wise from
within and from without, his power for distinguishing gradually
improves, the fog lifts, and he finds within himself a sure and
delicate instinct which was formerly atrophied for want of use.
The
first thing to
understand without the shadow of a doubt, is that, man is not in
freedom when he is following his own selfish instincts. He is only in
the appearance of freedom, and the appearance of freedom, without the
reality, leads invariably to the worst bondage. A man who loves drink
feels that he is free if he can drink as much as he wants, but that
leads to degradation and delirium tremens. A man who has an inherited
tendency toward the disobedience of any law feels that he is free if he
has the opportunity to disobey it whenever he wants to. But whatever
the law may be, the results have only to be carried to their logical
conclusion to make clear the bondage to which the disobedience leads.
All this disobedience to law leads to an inevitable, inflexible,
unsurmountable limit in the end, whereas steady effort toward obedience
to law is unlimited in its development of strength and power for use to
others. Man must understand his selfish tendencies in order to subdue
and control them, until they become subject to his own unselfish
tendencies, which are the spiritual laws within him. Thus he gradually
becomes free, -- soul and body, -- with no desire to disobey, and with
steadily increasing joy in his work and life. So much for the bondage
of doing wrong, and the freedom of doing right, which it seems
necessary to touch upon, in order to show clearly the bondage of doing
right in the wrong way, and the freedom of doing right in the right way.
It
is
right to work
for our daily bread, and for the sake of use to others, in whatever
form it may present itself. The wrong way of doing it makes unnecessary
strain, overfatigue and illness. The right way of working gives, as we
have said before, new power and joy in the work; it often turns even
drudgery into pleasure, for there is a special delight in learning to
apply one's self in a true spirit to "drudgery." The process of
learning such true application of one's powers often reveals new
possibilities in work.
It
is
right for most
people to sleep eight hours every night. The wrong way of doing it is
to go to sleep all doubled up, and to continue to work all night in our
sleep, instead of giving up and resting entirely. The right way gives
us the fullest possible amount of rest and refreshment.
It
is
right to take
our three meals a day, and all the nourishing food we need. The wrong
way of doing it, is to eat very fast, without chewing our food
carefully, and to give our stomachs no restful opportunity of
preparation to receive its food, or to take good care of it after it is
received. The right way gives us the opportunity to assimilate the food
entirely, so that every bit of fuel we put into our bodies is burnt to
some good purpose, and makes us more truly ready to receive more.
It
is
right to play
and amuse ourselves for rest and recreation. We play in the wrong way
when we use ourselves up in the strain of playing, in the anxiety lest
we should not win in a game, or when we play in bad air. When we play
in the right way, there is no strain, no anxiety, only good fun and
refreshment and rest.
We
might go through
the narrative of an average life in showing briefly the wonderful
difference between doing right in the right way, and doing right in the
wrong way. It is not too much to say that the difference in tendency is
as great as that between life and death.
It
is
one thing to
read about orderly living and to acknowledge that the ways described
are good and true, and quite another to have one's eyes opened and to
act from the new knowledge, day by day, until a normal mode of life is
firmly established. It requires quiet, steady force of will to get
one's self out of bad, and well established in good habits. After the
first interest and relief there often has to be steady plodding before
the new way becomes easy; but if we do not allow ourselves to get
discouraged, we are sure to gain our end, for we are opening ourselves
to the influence of the true laws within us, and in finding and obeying
these we are approaching the only possible Freedom of Life.
The Freedom of Life
by
Annie Payson Call
Order
in Adobe
PDF eBook or printed form for $2.95 (+ printing charge)
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