p. 9 | Don't Be a Fretter

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Mar 30, 1911

Don't Be a Fretter

THERE is one sin which is everywhere underestimated, and quite too often overlooked in valuation of character. It is the sin of fretting. This sin is as common as air, as speech, so common that unless it rises above its usual monotone, we do not even observe it. Watch any ordinary coming together of people, and see how many minutes it will be before somebody frets; that is, makes more or less complaining statements of something or other which most probably every one in the room, or in the car, or on the street corner, it may be, knew before, and which probably nobody can help. Why say anything about it? It is cold, it is hot, it is dry; somebody has broken an appointment or ill cooked a meal; stupidity or bad faith has resulted in discomfort. There are plenty of things to fret about. It is simply astonishing how much annoyance may be found in the course of every-day living, even at the simplest, if one only keeps a sharp eye out on that side of things. Fretting is all “time wasted on the road.”—Herald of Peace.