The Habit of Fretting

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 15, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 39.

The Habit of Fretting.

“POWER works easily, but fretting is a perpetual confession of weakness,” is a quotation that I shall never forget, as it was repeated to me years ago, when in a moment of childish discouragement I began to fret and fume over a trivial matter.

The idea of being considered a weak-minded woman was very repulsive to me, and by a desperate determination I conquered the tendency to fret, and thus prevented what might have become a life-long annoyance to myself and my friends.

“Fretters are generally workers,” I heard some one remark the other day. Yes; but they are not the most effective workers; they make a great fuss over the work they do, while a person who goes calmly and sensibly to work will accomplish better results, to say nothing of the comfort he gives to those around him. I have frequently noticed that fretting and over-neatness are quite likely to accompany each other. I have a case in mind in which the mother of a family was so excessively neat that her children were not allowed to sit anywhere except in the kitchen, lest they might disturb the precise order of arrangements, or soil the immaculate curtains and tidies in the parlor; indeed, she scarcely allowed herself to enter its sacred precincts except to make them still more immaculate. But she was a champion fretter; indeed, it would not be unjust to call her a virago. Beginning with nothing especial to fret about, she soon had something, as her husband and sons went to ruin about as quickly as ruin is generally accomplished.