Poise: How to Attain It Part 5

For this reason the lives of the timid become a succession of boredoms and of pains.

Even in those cases where no really unfortunate incident occurs, these people so exaggerate what actually does happen to them that the least little emotion causes them the most profound unhappiness.

On those days when nothing in particular happens they spend their time antic.i.p.ating all sorts of disasters, including those which are not the least likely to happen. To them the tiniest cloud is an omen of a devastating storm.

When the sun is shining their timidity prevents them from exposing themselves to the heat of its rays.

The timid man, in his moral isolation, is like the hare, who, crouched in its form, sleeps with one eye open in constant terror of the pa.s.ser-by or of the hunter.

It may be well to add that worry about oneself is invariably an accompaniment of all these troubles. People without poise are, with very few exceptions, egotists who exaggerate their own importance.

Moreover, they suffer keenly from the obscurity into which their defects have forced them as well as from dread of the alternatives presented to them, the making of an effort to escape this fate, an idea that fills them with horror, or the continuing to live in the unhappy condition that has spoiled existence for them through their own faults.

It is hardly then a matter for surprize that so many people who are thus mentally out of balance end by becoming neurotics or become a prey to those cerebral disorders that are, unfortunately, all too frequent.

This condition of solitude, at once deplored and self-imposed, has the still more serious disadvantage of leaving the mind, for lack of proper control, to the domination of the most false and exaggerated ideas.

It is a well-known fact that any force of exaggeration, however obvious, becomes less noticeable to us in proportion as it becomes more familiar.

It exists, in the last a.n.a.lysis, only by its comparative relation to other things.

It is certain that a child ten years old would seem very large if he were five feet high, whereas a man of that stature is considered a dwarf.

Among Oriental races a woman is generally cla.s.sed as a blonde whose hair is not absolutely black.

Things only take their real appearance from a comparison with others of the same kind.

For all his science, an ethnologist, placed in front of a man of an unknown tribe, would be unable to say whether this man's stature were normal or below the average in relation to others of his race, since no information would be forthcoming as to this people's height or characteristics. It is, therefore, no matter for surprize that the timid man, shut in upon himself and having no other horizon than the limited field of his own observations, is disposed to picture them in colors whose truth he can not verify, since the terms of comparison, vital to the accomplishment of his end, are not available to him.

It is, therefore, impossible for such a man not to become accustomed to the idea as it presents itself to him, to such an extent that he is quite unconscious of its successive changes in character.

Do we notice the growth of a child who is constantly with us until he reaches man's estate?

Can we measure the development of a blossom into the perfect flower?

a.s.suredly not, if we have lived daily in the company of the child and have glanced several times an hour at the blossom.

Both the one and the other will reach maturity without being sensibly conscious of the fact that they are changing.

But if we go away from the child for a few months, if, in the interval, we see other children, we can form an estimate of his growth and can compare him mentally with the other children we have met.

The same is true of the flower. If other duties call us away for the moment from contemplating it, we will notice the progress of its unfolding and we will also be able to tell whether, in relation to that of other plants, it is quick, slow, or merely normal.

The man who is timid, be he never so observant, will derive no benefit from these observations, for he is quite unable to generalize and refers them all to a point of view which cramps them hopelessly and gives them a color that is, entirely false.

So, from the habit of thinking without any opposition, little by little he allows his ideas to become changed and distorted without any one's being able to advise him of the misconceptions which he keeps closely to himself.

It is for this reason that all timid people have a marked tendency to distort facts and to acquire false ideas.

It is often with perfect good faith that they affirm a thing which they believe sincerely, not having had the opportunity to control the successive changes which have transformed it absolutely from what it was at the outset.

It is a lucky day for timid people of this cla.s.s when fate prevents them from entering into compet.i.tion with those who are possest of poise.

Were these latter a hundred times weaker than they are they would still end by triumphing over their feeble antagonists.

It is above all in the affairs of ordinary every-day life that poise renders the most valuable service.

If it becomes a question of presenting or discussing a matter of business, the timid man, embarra.s.sed by his own personality, begins to stammer, becomes confused, and can not recall a single argument. He finally abandons all the gain that he dreamed of making in order to put an end to the torments from which he suffers.

He is to be considered lucky if under the domination of the troubles in which he finds himself, he does not lose all faculty of speech.

This failing, so common among the timid, is a further cause of confusion to the victim.

At the bare idea that he may become the prey of such a calamity he unconsciously closes his lips and lowers the tones of his voice.

The man of poise, on the other hand, feels himself the more impelled to redouble his efforts in proportion to the need his cause has for being well defended.

He knows how to arrange his arguments, and to foresee those of his adversary, and, if he finds himself face to face with a statement which he can not refute, he will seek some means of softening the defeat or of changing the ground of the debate in such a way as to avoid confusion to himself.

In any event, such an occurrence will have no profound effect upon him.

Vanquished on one point, he will find the presence of mind to at once change the character of the discussion to questions which are at once familiar and favorable to him.

He who goes forth into life armed with poise has also the marked advantage over the timid that comes from superior health.

This phrase should not be the occasion for a smile. Timidity is a chronic cause of poor health in those who suffer from it.

Pushed to extremes, it is the source of a thousand nervous defects.

We have already touched upon stammering.

Unreasonable blushing is another misfortune of the timid. In drawing the attention of one's opponents it betrays at once one's ideas and one's fears.

Fear of this uncomfortable blushing inhibits many people from making the most of themselves or from properly protecting their own interests.

The shame they feel on account of this inferiority leads them, as we have seen, to seek isolation in which hypochondria slowly grows upon them, sure forerunner of that terrible neurasthenia of which the effects are so diverse and so disconcerting.

The man who was at the outset no more than timid, easily becomes transformed first into a misanthrope, then into a monomaniac tortured by a thousand physical inhibitions, such as the inability to hold a pen, to walk unaccompanied across an open s.p.a.ce, to ride in a public conveyance, etc., etc.

It must not be forgotten that these crises of embarra.s.sments always produce extreme emotion accompanied by palpitations whose frequent recurrence may lead to actual heart trouble.

All these disadvantages increase the sullenness of the timid, who are overcome by the sense of their own physical weakness, which they know has its origin in a condition of mind that they lack the power either to change or to abolish.

All these causes of physical inferiority are unknown to the man who appreciates the value of poise and puts it into practise.

Such a man has no fear of embarra.s.sment in speaking. He is a stranger to the misery of aimless blushing. If he does not always emerge victorious from the oratorical combats in which he engages he at least has the satisfaction of acknowledging to himself that he has not been beaten easily or without a struggle. In short, misanthropy, neurasthenia, and all their attendant ills, are for him unknown ailments.

One can not be too watchful against the attacks of timidity, which, like a contaminated spring, poisons the entire existence of those who are unable to dam up its flow.

Among the martyrdoms which are caused by it must be counted indecision, which is one of its most frequent and most unhappy results.