|
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
Copyright © 1996-
2010 Bridge World
Magazine, Inc. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The first portion of this article is based on an essay by Erle Stanley Gardner.
As society changes, it generates new problems and then, sometimes, their solutions. Much of this cycle has to do with speed. Messages once delivered by runners, then the pony express, then the telegraph, now flash around the globe over the Internet. People have moved by foot, by horse, by automobile; longer distances were covered by boat or train, now by airplane. Business machines have achieved calculation, data entry and correction, printing and copying at ever increasing speeds. Almost everything today has been speeded up so much compared to earlier times, and the increases have come so quickly, that it is difficult for most people to relax.
Few people caught up in a world that moves at a pace for which their earlier life has left them unprepared can simply forget their problems. They appear too pressing, too urgent, too important. To avoid the negative effects of continually living with stress, it is critical to find alternative activities that will fully occupy the mind. Ordinary pursuits that lack intellectual power and mental action will not do; they will not provide the punch needed to move one's consciousness to another environment. Those who cannot find satisfactory ways to provide a break from their usual state of mental stress may be forced to seek refuge in dangerous alternatives, such as sleeping pills.
What form of activity can serve safely as therapy for the strains of modern life? It must be something that is exciting and intriguing enough to drive ordinary problems out of one's mind. It must focus attention. It must be totally engrossing. If you can find such an activity, you will have a key to unlock the secret of mental repose. The more and the more deeply you think, the more you will be exposed to the high pressures of dealing with the speeding world, and the more you need an alternative that has fascinations deep enough to distract you.
* * *
What characteristics must a satisfactory distraction have? Of course, it must be something that you find interesting. But to achieve the level of control over your brain needed for good results, it must also be intellectually stimulating and rewarding: difficult enough to be challenging, yet not so hard to master that you are unable to achieve the reward of making observable progress; complex enough to offer new mental worlds to conquer from whatever level you have already reached, but with no obstructions to progress caused by the need for special talents (such as athletic ability); possessing sufficient variety that you will never fear that the intrigue of the subject will be exhausted.
There are very few activities that offer all these critical attributes. Bridge is one of them.
* * *
In his best-selling book, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, Dale Carnegie describes the dangers of unconstrained worry to health and happiness. That book was originally published during the 1940's. Since then, many scientific experiments and statistical surveys have confirmed what was then only a narrowly-believed theory: that mental state can have a major impact on well being, and that a complete approach to medical care must take a patient's thought processes into account. Carnegie lists six ways to "break the worry habit before it breaks you." The first of these is to distract yourself with something else. It is therapeutic to provde yourself with an alternative activity that occupies your attention sufficiently to prevent your mind's continually focussing fruitlessly on sources of worry.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
