Fear of accident keeps one in a constant state of unnecessary terror.  To be willing that an accident should happen does not make it more likely to happen, but it prevents our wasting energy by resistance, and keeps us quiet and free, so that if an emergency of any kind arises, we are prepared to act promptly and calmly for the best.  If the amount of human energy wasted in the strain of nervous fear could be measured in pounds of pressure, the figures would be astonishing.  Many people who have the habit of nervous fear in one form or another do not throw it off merely because they do not know how.  There are big and little nervous fears, and each and all can be met and conquered,—­thus bringing a freedom of life which cannot even be imagined by those carrying the burden of fear, more or less, throughout their lives.

The fear of what people will think of us is a very common cause of slavery, and the nervous anxiety as to whether we do or do not please is a strain which wastes the energy of the greater part of mankind.  It seems curious to measure the force wasted in sensitiveness to public opinion as you would measure the waste of power in an engine, and yet it is a wholesome and impersonal way to think of it,—­until we find a better way.  It relieves us of the morbid element in the sensitiveness to say, “I cannot mind what so-and-so thinks of me, for I have not the nervous energy to spare.”  It relieves us still more of the tendency to morbid feeling, if we are wholesomely interested in what others think of us, in order to profit by it, and do better.  There is nothing morbid or nervous about our sensitiveness to opinion, when it is derived from a love of criticism for the sake of its usefulness.  Such a rightful and wise regard for the opinion of others results in a saving of energy, for on the one hand, it saves us from the mistakes of false and shallow independence, and, on the other, from the wasteful strain of servile fear.

The little nervous fears are countless.  The fear of not being exact.  The fear of not having turned off the gas entirely.  The fear of not having done a little daily duty which we find again and again we have done.  These fears are often increased, and sometimes are aroused, by our being tired, and it is well to realize that, and to attend at once carefully to whatever our particular duty may be, and then, when the fear of not having done it attacks us, we should think of it as if it were a physical pain, and turn our attention quietly to something else.  In this way such little nagging fears are relieved; whereas, if we allowed ourselves to be driven by them, we might bring on nervous states that would take weeks or months to overcome.  These nervous fears attack us again and again in subtle ways, if we allow ourselves to be influenced by them.  They are all forms of unwillingness or resistance, and may all be removed by dropping the resistance and yielding,—­not to the fear, but to a willingness that the fear should be there.