Stop Fuming and Fretting - 1

Stop Fuming and Fretting - 1

MANY PEOPLE MAKE life unnecessarily difficult for themselves by dissipating power and energy through fuming and fretting.

Do you ever "fume" and "fret?" Here is a picture of yourself if you do. The word "fume" means to boil up, to blow off, to emit vapor, to be agitated, to be distraught, to seethe. The word "fret" is equally descriptive. It is reminiscent of a sick child in the night, a petulant half-cry, half-whine. It ceases, only to begin again. It has an irritating, annoying, penetrating quality. To fret is a childish term, but it describes the emotional reaction of many adults.


The Bible advises us to "Fret not thyself . . ."( Ps 37:1) This is sound advice for the people of our time. We need to stop fuming and fretting and get peaceful if we are to have power to live effectively. And how do we go about doing so? A first step is to reduce your pace or at least the tempo of your pace. We do not realize how accelerated the rate of our lives has become, or the speed at which we are driving ourselves. Many people are destroying their physical bodies by this pace, but what is even more tragic, they are tearing their minds and souls to shreds as well. It is possible for a person to live a quiet existence physically and yet maintain a high tempo emotionally. Even an invalid can live at too high a pace from that standpoint. The character of our thoughts determines pace. When the mind goes rushing on pell-mell from one feverish attitude to another it becomes feverish and the result is a state bordering on petulance. The pace of modern life must be reduced if we are not to suffer profoundly from its debilitating over-stimulation and super-excitement. This over-stimulation produces toxic poisons in the body and
creates emotional illness. It produces fatigue and a sense of frustration so that we fume and fret about everything from our personal troubles to the state of the nation and the world. If the effect of this emotional disquiet is so pronounced physically, what must its effect be on that deep inner essence of the personality known as the soul?


It is impossible to have peace of soul if the pace is so feverishly accelerated. God won’t go that fast. He will not endeavor to keep up with you. He says in effect, "Go ahead it you must with this foolish pace and when you are worn out I will offer my healing. But I can make your life so rich if you will slow down now and live and move and have your being in me." God moves imperturbably, slowly, and with perfect organization. The only wise rate at which to live is God’s rate. God gets things done and they are done right and He does them without hurry. He neither fumes nor frets. He is peaceful and therefore efficient. This same peace is offered to
us—"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you . . ."( Joh 14:27) In a sense this is a pathetic generation, especially in the great cities because of the effect of nervous tension, synthetic excitement, and noise; but the malady extends into the country districts also, for the air waves transmit tension.


I was amused by an old lady who, in talking about this matter, said, "Life is so daily." That remark certainly spoke volumes about the pressure, responsibilities, and tension of daily life. Its persistent, insistent demand upon us is provocative of pressure.


One wonders whether this generation of Americans is not so accustomed to tension that many are in the unhappy state of not being comfortable without it. The deep quietness of woods and valleys so well known to our forefathers is an unaccustomed state to them. The tempo of their lives is such that in many instances they have an incapacity to draw upon the sources of peace and quietness which the physical world offers.


One summer afternoon my wife and I went for a long walk in the woods. We were stopping at the beautiful Lake Mohonk Mountain House which is set in one of the finest natural parks in America, 7,500 acres of virgin mountain- side in the middle of which is a lake lying like a gem in the forest. The word mohonk means "lake in the sky." Aeons ago some giant upheaval of the earth cast up these sheer cliffs. You come out of the deep woods onto some noble promontory and rest your eyes on great valleys set among hills, rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun. These woods, mountains, and valleys constitute what ought to be a sure retreat from every confusion of this world.


On this afternoon as we walked there was a mixture of summer showers and sunlit hours. We were drenched and started to fret about it a bit because it took the press out of our clothes. Then we told each other that it doesn’t hurt a human being to get drenched with clean rain water, that the rain feels cool and fresh on one’s face, and that you can always sit in the sun and dry yourself out. We walked under the trees and talked and then fell silent.


We were listening, listening deeply to the quietness. In a strict sense, the woods are never still. There is tremendous activity always in process, but nature makes no strident noises regardless of the vastness of its operation. Nature’s sounds are quiet, harmonious. On this beautiful afternoon, nature was laying its hand of healing quietness upon us, and we could actually feel the tension being drawn off. Just as we were falling under this spell, the faint sounds of what passes for music came to us. It was nervous, high-strung music of the jitterbug variety. Presently through the woods came three young people, two young women and a young man, and the latter was lugging a portable radio.


They were three young city people out for a walk in the woods and tragically enough were bringing their noise along with them. They were nice young folk, too, for they stopped and we had a pleasant talk with them. It occurred to me to ask them to turn that thing off and listen to the music of the woods, but I didn’t feel it was my business to instruct them, and finally they went on their way.


We commented on the loss they were incurring, that they could pass through this peacefulness and not give ear to the music that is as old as the world, harmony and melody the like of which man has never equaled: the song of the wind through the trees, the sweet notes of birds singing their hearts out, the whole background of the music of the spheres.


This is still to be found in America in our woods and great plains, in our valleys, in our mountain majesties, and where the ocean foams on soft shores of sand. We should avail ourselves of its healing. Remember the words of Jesus, "Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest awhile." (Mr 6:31) Even as I write these words and give you this good advice, I recall instances where it has been necessary to remind myself to practice the same truth, which emphasizes that we must everlastingly discipline ourselves to quietness if we expect its benefits in our lives.


One autumn day Mrs. Peale and I took a trip into Massachusetts to see our son John at Deerfield Academy. We told him we would arrive at 11 A. M., and we pride ourselves on the good old American custom of promptness. Therefore, being a bit behind schedule, we were driving at breakneck speed through the autumnal landscape. My wife said, "Norman, did you see that radiant hillside?"


"What hillside?" I asked.


"It just went by on the other side," she explained.


"Look at that beautiful tree."


"What tree?" I was already a mile past it.


"This is one of the most glorious days I have ever seen," my wife said. "How could you possibly imagine such amazing colors as these New England hillsides in October? In fact," she said, "it makes me happy inside."


That remark of hers so impressed me that I stopped the car and went back a quarter of a mile to a lake backed by towering hills dressed in autumn colors. We sat and looked and meditated. God with His genius and skill had painted that scene in the varied colors which He alone can mix. In the still waters of the lake lay a reflected vision of His glory, for the hillside was unforgettably pictured in that mirrorlike pond.


For quite a while we sat without a word until finally my wife broke the silence by the only appropriate statement that one could make, "He leadeth me beside the still waters." (Ps 23:2) We arrived at Deerfield at eleven, but we were not tired. In fact, we were deeply refreshed.


To help reduce this tension which seems to dominate our people everywhere, you can start by reducing your own pace. To do that you will need to slow down, quiet down. Do not fume. Do not fret. Practice being peaceful. Practice "the peace of God which passeth all understanding." (Php 4:7) Then note the quiet power sense that wells up within you.


A friend of mine who was compelled to take an enforced rest as a result of "pressure" wrote me, "Many lessons have been learned during this enforced retreat. Now I know better than before that in the quiet we become aware of His presence. Life can get muddled. But ‘muddied water,’ says Lao-tse, ‘let stand, will become clear.’"


A physician gave some rather whimsical advice to a patient, an aggressive, go-getter type of businessman. Excitedly he told the doctor what an enormous amount of work he had to do and that he had to get it done right away quick or else.


"I take my brief case home every night and it’s packed with work," he said with nervous inflection.


"Why do you take work home with you at night?" the doctor asked quietly.


"I have to get it done," he fumed.


"Cannot someone else do it, or help you with it?" asked the doctor,


"No," the man snapped. "I am the only one who can do it. It must be done just right, and I alone can do it as it must be done, and it has to be done quickly. Everything depends upon me."


"If I write you a prescription, will you follow it?" asked the doctor.


This, believe it or not, was the prescription. His patient was to take off two hours every working day and go for a long walk. Then he was to take off a half-day a week and spend that half-day in a cemetery.


In astonishment the patient demanded, "Why should I spend a half-day in a cemetery?"


"Because," answered the doctor, "I want you to wander around and look at the gravestones of men who are there permanently. I want you to meditate on the fact that many of them are there because they thought even as you do, that the whole world rested on their shoulders. Meditate on the solemn fact that when you get there permanently the world will go on just the same and, as important as you are, others will be able to do the work you are now doing. I suggest that you sit on one of those tombstones and repeat this statement, ‘. . . a thousand years in Thy sight are
but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.’ "( Ps 90:4)


The patient got the idea. He slowed his pace. He learned to delegate authority. He achieved a proper sense of his own importance. He stopped fuming and fretting. He got peaceful. And, it might be added, he does better work. He is developing a more competent organization and he admits that his business is in better condition.


(From: Power Of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale)