The-Conquest-of-Happiness-by-Bertrand-Russell

work for a living. To a great extent fatigue in such
cases is due to worry, and worry could be
prevented by a better philosophy of life and a little
more mental discipline. Most men and women are
very deficient in control over their thoughts. I mean
by this that they cannot cease to think about
worrying topics at times when no action can be
taken in regard to them. Men take their business
worries to bed with them, and in the hours of the
night, when they should be gaining fresh strength to
cope with tomorrow’s troubles, they are going
over and over again in their minds problems about
which at the moment they can do nothing, thinking
about them, not in a way to produce a sound line of
conduct on the morrow, but in that half-insane way
that characterises the troubled meditations of
insomnia. Something of the midnight madness still
clings about them in the morning, clouding their
judgement, spoiling their temper, and making every
obstacle infuriating.
The wise man thinks about his troubles only when
there is some purpose in doing so; at other times he