Without realizing it, countless millions are shortening their lives, forfeiting happiness, committing slow suicide!
How? By failing to control their emotions!
Read how emotional control influences health, happiness, long life — and eternal salvation!
A LITTLE-PUBLICIZED, but highly important, conference was held in 1923 at the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago. Nine of the world's most successful financiers attended that meeting.
Among those present were Presidents of the largest steel, gas and utility companies in the world; the greatest wheat speculator; president of the New York Stock Exchange; a member of the President's cabinet; the greatest "Bear" on Wall Street; head of the world's largest monopoly and the president of the Bank of International Settlements.
Here were gathered nine of the world's most "successful" men — men who had at least found the secret of making money. What had become of these great men — a quarter of a century later?
Reports "Food for Thought":
"The president of the largest independent steel company — Samuel Instill — died a fugitive from justice and penniless in a foreign land.
"The president of the largest gas company — Howard Hopson — became insane.
"The greatest wheat speculator — Arthur Cutten — died abroad — insolvent.
"The president of the New York Stock Exchange — Richard Whitney — was recently released from Sing-Sing.
"The member of the President's cabinet — Albert Fall — was pardoned from prison so he could die at home.
"The greatest 'Bear' in Wall Street — Jesse Livermore — died a suicide. "The head of the greatest monopoly — Ivar Kruegar — died a suicide.
"The president of the Bank of International Settlements — Leon Fraser — died a suicide.
"All of these men learned well the art of making money, but not one of them learned how to live."
This sad account of the lives of "successful" men points up something drastically wrong in our society. These men never learned proper emotional control!
The .great depression of 1929-39 may have been a contributing cause to the financial ruination, felonies, insanity and suicides of these men. Yet not one of them need have died in shame — had they really learned how to live! We might well be shocked to learn that three of these nine world "greats" committed suicide. Yet millions of ordinary people — maybe you — are committing slow suicide — without realizing it.
Myriads who would never consider deliberately taking their own lives are in reality committing slow SUICIDE by giving free and uncontrolled rein to their emotions! It is time we understand how to control our emotions. Why do so many of us siphon away our energy, health, happiness — and our very life — through lack of emotional control?
Happiness Not Synonymous With Riches
Let's take an example of real emotional control.
Nearly 2000 years ago, Jesus Christ was born into a humble, and certainly less than wealthy, family. He grew, to manhood as a hard-working carpenter in the city of Nazareth. He possessed little in the way of material possessions (Mark 6:3; Luke 9:58). He was, however, a man who knew how to make others supremely happy. He knew well the vital principle: "A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth" (Luke 12:15).
"I am come," He said, "that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly" (John 10:10).
He inspired one of His very own apostles to write, "I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health . . ." (III John 2).
Not only does Jesus Christ wish us to have health, wealth, pleasure and true happiness here and now. He wants us to enjoy these throughout all eternity! "Thou wilt show me the path of life: in thy presence is fullness of joy; at thy right hand there are PLEASURES for evermore" (Ps. 16:11). Also, see I Timothy 6:17.
But how? What are the rules of life that lead to this satisfying goal?
Mankind has never discovered the way which would produce this radiant health, happiness and the ultimate — eternal life (Prov. 14:12, Isa. 55:6-9). Only God, through His written revelation to man, the Holy Bible, reveals it to man.
See how it can work for you!
Why Emotional Control?
Why is every other hospital bed in the United 'States occupied by a mentally disturbed patient? Why does the average American have about fifty headaches per year — nearly one a week?
Yes, why? Let's go back to the beginning of our troubles.
Almighty God revealed the way of happiness to our first parents. He told Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden that if they transgressed His command, sorrow, emotional upsets, agony and finally death would ensue (Gen. 2:15-17).
Understand how disobedience to the ways and laws of God actually brings about, in this life, physical illness, mental problems, and eventual death.
Arrogant, blinded human beings often think they can flout the physical and spiritual laws of Almighty God with impunity. But a penalty is always exacted — sooner or later! Disobedience to — transgression of — God's laws is SIN. The result of physical sin? Physical and mental suffering, and finally death here and now. Not to mention the penalty of knowingly SINNING spiritually — the second death — a death for all eternity, from which there is no resurrection.
The laws of God cannot be broken with impunity! Man's sins always boomerang!
How Not To Commit Suicide
Uncontrolled, runaway emotions such as anger, malice, fear, depression and guilt erode the health of every human being. So do drunkenness, gluttony, the use of drugs, tobacco, excessive amounts of stimulants, too many sweets and processed starchy foods, sexual excesses or any other form of dissipation.
This is an age of increased knowledge. Yet how little understanding there is. In recent years a veritable avalanche of material has been published showing a very close connection between our health and the way we think. The mind (Greek: psyche) definitely affects the body (Greek: soma) and its proper functioning. That's why we call so many malfunctions of the human body psychosomatic — mind-body relationships.
Notice how anger and worry adversely affect the body.
"Many things," said Reader's Digest, British edition, December, 1962, "can upset the chain of normal digestive activity. Nervous tension and anger are prime offenders. . . . When a person is angry or worried the normally pink [colon] becomes beet-red and goes into a spasm. This slows or halts normal bowel activity and allows the lower intestine to absorb too much fluid from wastes passing through it. CONSTIPATION MAY RESULT. Today, doctors tend to believe that WORRY is the chief cause of constipation. Further they believe that excessive worry about elimination itself can be the principal culprit. Observes one doctor: 'It is not the Colon which needs treatment but the man who surrounds it'."
Undoubtedly true in part. Uncontrolled emotions — such as anger, fear, guilt and worry — do affect body functioning, the heart, lungs, liver, intestines, stomach — including the endocrine glands. That's why it is vitally important to control one's thinking and emotions.
Countless millions have aged prematurely because of living under a cloud of fear, worry, doubt or guilt. There are numerous instances in which a person has been frightened so badly that his hair turned completely white almost overnight.
Emotional Shock Can Cause Death
Excessive or prolonged fear, worry, hatred or guilt always have a destructive effect upon the human body. The mind and nervous system suffer also.
Have you ever wondered what happens in the brain, as recorded on an electroencephalograph, when a person flies into a rage or becomes petrified with fear? You would be shocked to see the results!
No normal mind or nervous system can stand up under an indefinite number of rages, or other severe emotional outbursts! The famous American surgeon, Dr. George W. Crile, said: "We fear not only in our minds hut in our HEARTS, BRAINS and VISCERA, that whatever the cause of fear and worry, the effect can always be noted in the cells, tissues and organs of the body" (The Power of Positive Thinking, Peale, p.144).
And according to Dr. Stanley Cobb, neurologist, worry is closely connected with the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis. "A doctor recently stated that there is an epidemic of fear and worry in this country. 'All doctors,' he declared, 'are having cases of illness which are brought on directly by fear, and aggravated by worry and a feeling of insecurity' " (ibid. p. 144).
A New York physician wrote, "Sixty per cent of the people in this town are sick because they are maladjusted in their minds and in their souls. It is hard to realize that the modern soul is sick to such an extent that the physical organs pain" (ibid. p. 176).
These doctors aren't joking!
During the prophesied, soon-coming Great Tribulation, men will be so petrified with fear that their very bowels will pain them. Speaking of this Tribulation period, God asks, "Wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness?" (Jer. 30:6)
Luke also mentions a soon-coming terrible time of fear, so great that it causes fainting and heart attacks. "And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken" (Luke 21:25, 26).
God means what He says. He made the human mind and body!
According to Dr. Franklin Ebaugh (of the University of Colorado Medical School) one third of all cases of illness in our general hospitals are purely organic in nature and onset. Another third are caused by a combination of emotional and organic factors and one third are definitely emotional in origin.
Yet with all this knowledge, why are so few living the way of joy, peace, happiness? Simply because they are unwilling to pay the price — to take the effort to rule their emotions and control their minds!
" 'We have discovered the psychosomatic cause [physical illness induced by misguided emotions] of high blood pressure as some form of subtle, repressed fear — a fear of things that might happen, not of things that are,' says Dr. Rebecca Beard. . . . 'In the case of diabetes, it is grief or disappointment which we found uses up more energy than any other emotion, thereby exhausting the insulin which is manufactured by the pancreas cells until they are worn out' " (The Power of Positive Thinking, pp. 177, 178).