The Ulcer Is My Friend...

The doctors were agreed on it, and they set about reassuring me with phrases of unconcern: You have an ulcer; there is nothing to fear. Only follow our instructions, be careful in taking your food, and no harm will come to you.

I was one of those who are upset by the smallest surprises — how then with me now, having been told this?... I went straight home and stayed two days in my bed, staring at the ceiling of the room; then I set about putting my affairs in order and arranging the accounts and the lists, and I felt the stab of pain, so I swallowed the medicine and rested, lest my friends be distressed to see me so weak.

I read a great deal about living with this disease, and I discussed what I had taken in from my readings with everyone who would lend me an ear, and time passed comfortably enough. Once I got up to take a pill of medicine, and hardly had I stepped from my bed when a fog covered my world, and I no longer knew what happened, until I opened my eyes to find myself in a hospital room, my head swollen from a blow I had received as I fell to the floor of the room. And so the doctors put me on the death list; they barred visitors from me, and my only messenger to the outside world was my faithful wife, who never ceased to smile, hiding the inward pain she endured. She always brought me books to read, among them a book from which I took this passage: "Befriend him whom you cannot defeat." But is that permissible with an ulcer? The blood in my brain had grown weak after the hemorrhage, and that gave no cause for reassurance; yet it was impossible that I be defeated by something so simple. Let me then use diplomacy with this adversary, and make a friend of him — but that was not according to the medical method, and do not expect me to explain it to you in that fashion, though I had tried the pills of medicine, and its doses.

To take a medicine without a doctor's prescription is a mistaken idea; yet I did it — but my medicine did not come from the pharmacy, and I shall tell you my experience: perhaps you will believe it, or perhaps you will toss my words into the wastebasket. I do not smoke at all, so that is not the cause of my illness, nor is drink. I am fifty years old; I have never overtaxed my body — what, then, was I to give up?...

I sat down to write a list, which I went over critically twice, and when I had finished, the conclusion was that I was troubled. What, then, is my worry? My family is provided for, my post is good, my house is fine, my life is secure. And suddenly I knew the cause: my worry embraces the past, the present, and the future, and leaves out not a stray detail. I was worrying about worry itself, and I heard an inner voice say: "Befriend worry too."

I slept long, and when I rose, the first thing I did was to write out a list of these worries and their causes; and hardly had I finished when I felt fire leaping from my body, and fatigue sapping my strength, so that I wished I might die, to find rest, for I was passing through a cruel spell. And I took the list and divided it into two parts: a class that could be overcome, and another hard to master —

and this latter was the fire's portion.

Believe it or not, I say in truth that when I saw the last spark of its flame die away, I felt that a burden had been lifted from me — as though it had been a paper of magic, and in ridding myself of it I found rest.

I returned home, leaving my office in a state of disorder, and stayed in the house two weeks. When I went back to the office again, the other list was still there; I set it before me, and shut myself for a quarter of an hour in the boat of worry, closing my eyes to everything around me; and I felt better after facing the troubles. The next day I was walking upon the clouds, and as the days passed, the worries began to melt away, and I came to rest easy in my sleep. Thus I understood what the talk in the books means: that the ulcer is caused by nervousness turned into constant worry. I am no psychologist, but I am a man trying to create the better for a happier life; and I understood that the easiest way to avoid distress is to plunge into it and face it, for if we shy away from it, it hovers over us and defeats us. This method may serve no one but me, yet it served me, and I now find ample time for merriment, and for sleep, and I walk along with my friend the ulcer; we form a single front — and I think we are set for a long while to come!...