WORRIES AND HOBBIES Though these words are much alike in sound they have no sympathy one with another.

Put them in active operation and they rush at each other's throats far worse than Allies and Germans are now fighting.
They strive for a death grip, and as soon as one gets hold he hangs on to the end--if he can.

Yet, as in all conflicts, the right is sure to win in an equal combat, the right of the hobby is absolutely certain to win over the wrong of the worry.
Webster defines a hobby as: "A subject or plan which one is constantly setting off," or "a favorite and ever recurring theme of discourse, thought, or effort," but the editor of _The Century Dictionary_ has a better definition, more in accord with modern thought, viz., "That which a person persistently pursues or dwells upon with zeal or delight, as if riding a horse." Are you cursed by the demon of worry?
Has he got a death grip on your throat?
Do you want to be freed from his throttling assaults?
If so, get a hobby, the more mentally occupying the better, and ride it earnestly, sincerely, furiously.

Let it be what it will, it will far more than pay in the end, when you find yourself free from the nightmare of worry that has so relentlessly ridden you for so long.
Collect bugs, old china, Indian baskets, Indian blankets, pipes, domestic implements, war paraphanalia, photographs, butterflies; make an herbarium of the flowers of your State; collect postage stamps, old books, first editions; go in for extra-illustrating books; pick up and classify all the stray phrases you hear--do anything that will occupy your mind to the exclusion of worry.
And let me here add a thought--the more unselfish you can make your hobby the better it will be for you.

Perhaps I can put it even in a better way yet: The less your hobby is entered into with the purely personal purpose of pleasing yourself, and the more actively you can make it beneficial, helpful, joy-giving to others, the more potent for good it will be in aiding you to get rid of your worries.