32 داستان واقعی - بخش 03

Time Solves a Lot of Things by Louis T. Montant, Jr.

Worry caused me to lose ten years of my life. Those ten years should have been the most fruitful and richest years of any young man’s life, the years from eighteen to twenty, eight.

I realize now that losing those years was no one’s fault but my own.

I worried about everything: my job, my health, my family, and my feeling of inferiority. I was so frightened that I used to cross the street to avoid meeting people I knew. When I met a friend on the street, I would often pretend not to notice him, because I was afraid of being snubbed.

I was so afraid of meeting strangers, so terrified in their presence, that in one space of two weeks I lost out on three different jobs simply because I didn’t have the courage to tell those three different prospective employers what I knew I could do.

Then one day eight years ago, I conquered worry in one afternoon, and have rarely worried since then. That afternoon I was in the office of a man who had had far more troubles than I had ever faced, yet he was one of the most cheerful men I had ever known. He had made a fortune in 1929, and lost every cent. He had made another fortune in 1933, and lost that; and another fortune in 1937, and lost that, too. He had gone through bankruptcy and had been hounded by enemies and creditors. Troubles that would have broken some men and driven them to suicide rolled off him like water off a duck’s back.

As I sat in his office that day eight years ago, I envied him and wished that God had made me like him.

As we were talking, he tossed a letter to me that he had received that morning and said: “Read that.”

It was an angry letter, raising several embarrassing questions. If I had received such a letter, it would have sent me into a tailspin. I said: “Bill, how are you going to answer it?”

“Well,” Bill said, “I’ll tell you a little secret. Next time you’ve really got something to worry about, take a pencil and a piece of paper, and sit down and write out in detail just what’s worrying you. Then put that piece of paper in the lower right, hand drawer of your desk. Wait a couple of weeks, and then look at it. If what you wrote down still worries you when you read it, put that piece of paper back in your lower right, hand drawer. Let it sit there for another two weeks. It will be safe there. Nothing will happen to it. But in the meantime, a lot may happen to the problem that is worrying you. I have found that, if only I have patience, the worry that is trying to harass me will often collapse like a pricked balloon.”

That bit of advice made a great impression on me. I have been using Bill’s advice for years now, and, as a result, I rarely worry about anything.

Time solves a lot of things. Time may also solve what you are worrying about today.

I Was Warned Not to Try to Speak or to Move Even a Finger

by Dr. Joseph L. Ryan

Several years ago I was a witness in a lawsuit that caused me a great deal of mental strain and worry. After the case was over, and I was returning home in the train, I had a sudden and violent physical collapse. Heart trouble. I found it almost impossible to breathe.

When I got home the doctor gave me an injection. I wasn’t in bed; I hadn’t been able to get any farther than the living, room settee. When I regained consciousness, I saw that the parish priest was already there to give me final absolution!

I saw the stunned grief on the faces of my family. I knew my number was up. Later, I found out that the doctor had prepared my wife for the fact that I would probably be dead in less than thirty minutes. My heart was so weak I was warned not to try to speak or to move even a finger.

I had never been a saint, but I had learned one thing, not to argue with God. So I closed my eyes and said: “Thy will be done. If it has to come now, Thy will be done.”

As soon as I gave in to that thought, I seemed to relax all over. My terror disappeared, and I asked myself quickly what was the worst that could happen now. Well, the worst seemed to be a possible return of the spasms, with excruciating pains, then all would be over. I would go to meet my Maker and soon be at peace.

I lay on that settee and waited for an hour, but the pains didn’t return. Finally, I began to ask myself what I would do with my life if I didn’t die now. I determined that I would exert every effort to regain my health. I would stop abusing myself with tension and worry and rebuild my strength.

That was four years ago. I have rebuilt my strength to such a degree that even my doctor is amazed at the improvement my cardiograms show. I no longer worry. I have a new zest for life. But I can honestly say that if I hadn’t faced the worst, my imminent death, and then tried to improve upon it, I don’t believe I would be here today. If I hadn’t accepted the worst, I believe I would have died from my own fear and panic.

Mr. Ryan is alive today because he made use of the principle described in the Magic Formula, Face the Worst That Can Happen.

I Am a Great Dismisser

by Ordway Tead

Worry is a habit, a habit that I broke long ago. I believe that my habit of refraining from worrying is due largely to three things.

First: I am too busy to indulge in self, destroying anxiety. I have three main activities, each one of which should be virtually a fulltime job in itself. I lecture to large groups at Columbia University: I am also chairman of the Board of Higher Education of New York City. I also have charge of the Economic and Social Book Department of the publishing firm of Harper and Brothers. The insistent demands of these three tasks leave me no time to fret and stew and run around in circles.

Second: I am a great dismisser. When I turn from one task to another, I dismiss all thoughts of the problems I had been thinking about previously. I find it stimulating and refreshing to turn from one activity to another. It rests me. It clears my mind.

Third: I have had to school myself to dismiss all these problems from my mind when I close my office desk. They are always continuing. Each one always has a set of unsolved problems demanding my attention. If I carried these issues home with me each night, and worried about them, I would destroy my health and in addition, I would destroy all ability to cope with them.

Ordway Tead is a master of the Four Good Working Habits. Do you remember what they are? See Part 7, chapter 26.

If I Had Not Stopped Worrying, I Would Have Been in My Grave Long Ago

by Connie Mack, tha grand old man of baseball. I have been professional in baseball for over sixty-three years. When I first started, back in the eighties, I got no salary at all. We played on vacant lots, and stumbled over tin cans and discarded horse collars. When the game was over, we passed the hat. The pickings were pretty slim for me, especially since I was the main support of my widowed mother and my younger brothers and sisters. Sometimes the ball team would have to put on a strawberry supper or a clambake to keep going.

I have had plenty of reason to worry. I am the only baseball manager who ever finished in last place for seven consecutive years. I am the only manager who ever lost eight hundred games in eight years. After a series of defeats, I used to worry until I could hardly eat or sleep. But I stopped worrying twenty-five years ago, and I honestly believe that if I hadn’t stopped worrying then, I would have been in my grave long ago.

As I looked back over my long life (I was born when Lincoln was President), I believe I was able to conquer worry by doing these things:

One: I saw how futile it was. I saw it was getting me nowhere and was threatening to wreck my career.

Two: I saw it was going to ruin my health.

Three: I kept myself so busy planning and working to win games in the future that I had no time to worry over games that were already lost.

Four: I finally made it a rule never to call a player’s attention to his mistakes until twenty, four hours after the game. In my early days, I used to dress and undress with the players. If the team had lost, I found it impossible to refrain from criticizing the players and from arguing with them bitterly over their defeats. I found this only increased my worries. Criticizing a player in front of the others didn’t make him want to co-operate. It really made him bitter. So, since I couldn’t be sure of controlling myself and my tongue immediately after a defeat, I made it a rule never to see the players right after a defeat. I wouldn’t discuss the defeat with them until the next day. By that time, I had cooled off, the mistakes didn’t loom so large, and I could talk things over calmly and the men wouldn’t get angry and try to defend themselves.

Five: I tried to inspire players by building them up with praise instead of tearing them down with fault finding. I tried to have a good word for everybody.

Six: I found that I worried more when I was tired; so I spend ten hours in bed every night, and I take a nap every afternoon. Even a five, minute nap helps a lot.

Seven: I believe I have avoided worries and lengthened my life by continuing to be active. I am eighty, five, but I am not going to retire until I begin telling the same stories over and over. When I start doing that, I’ll know then that I am growing old.

I got rid of stomach ulcers and worry by changing my job and my mental attitude

by Arden W. Sharp, Green Bay, Wisconsin

Five years ago, I was worried, depressed and sick. Doctor said I had stomach ulcers. They put me on a diet. I drank milk and ate eggs until I revolted at the sight of them, but I didn’t get well. Then one day I read an article about cancer. I imagined I had every symptom. I was not worried. Now I was terrified. Naturally this made my stomach ulcers flareup like fire. The final blow came when the Army rejected me as physically unfit at 24. I was apparently a physical wreck when I should’ve been at the height of my physical powers. I was at the end of my rope. I couldn’t see a ray of hope. In desperation I tried to analyze how I’d gotten myself into this terrible condition. Slowly the truth began to dawn on me.

Two years previously, I had been happy and healthy in my work as a salesman but wartime shortages had forced me to give up selling and take a job at a factory. And I despised factory work, and to make matters worse, I was associating with a group of the most accomplished negative thinkers I’d ever had the misfortune to meet. They were bitter about everything, nothing was right. They constantly condemned the job and cursed the pay, the hours, the boss and everything. I realized that I had unconsciously absorbed their vindictive attitude. I slowly began to realize that my stomach ulcers were probably brought on by my own negative thoughts and bitter emotions. I then decided to go back to the work I like, selling. And to associate with people who thought positive constructive thoughts. This decision probably saved my life. I deliberately sought out friends and business associates who were progressive thinkers, happy, optimistic men free of worry and ulcers.

As soon as I changed my emotions, I changed my stomach. Within a short time, I forgot that I had ever had ulcers. I soon found that you can catch health, happiness and success from others just as easily as you can catch worries, bitterness, and failure. This is the most important lesson I’ve ever learned. I should’ve learned it long ago. I had heard about it and read about it dozens of times, but I had to learn it the hard way. I realize now what Jesus meant when he said, “as a man think that in his heart, so is he”.

I Now Look for the Green Light

by Joseph M. Cotter

From the time I was a small boy, throughout the early stages of young manhood, and during my adult life, I was a professional worrier. My worries were many and varied. Some were real; most of them were imaginary. Upon rare occasions I would find myself without anything to worry about, then I would worry for fear I might be overlooking something.

Then, two years ago, I started out on a new way of living. This required making a self, analysis of my faults, and a very few virtues, a “searching and fearless moral inventory” of myself. This brought out clearly what was causing all this worry.

The fact was that I could not live for today alone. I was fretful of yesterday’s mistakes and fearful of the future.

I was told over and over that “today was the tomorrow I had worried about yesterday”. But it wouldn’t work on me. I was advised to live on a twenty, four, hour programme. I was told that today was the only day over which I had any control and that I should make the most of my opportunities each day. I was told that if I did that, I would be so busy I would have no time to worry about any other day, past or future. That advice was logical, but somehow I found it hard to put these darned ideas to work for me.

Then like a shot from out of the dark, I found the answer, and where do you suppose I found it? On a North, western Railroad platform at seven P.M. on May 31, 1945. It was an important hour for me. That is why I remember it so clearly.

We were taking some friends to the train. They were leaving on The City of Los Angeles, a streamliner, to return from a vacation. War was still on, crowds were heavy that year. Instead of boarding the train with my wife, I wandered down the tracks towards the front of the train. I stood looking at the big shiny engine for a minute. Presently I looked down the track and saw a huge semaphore. An amber light was showing. Immediately this light turned to a bright green. At that moment, the engineer started clanging a bell; I heard the familiar “All aboard!” and, in a matter of seconds, that huge streamliner began to move out of that station on its 2,300, mile trip.

My mind started spinning. Something was trying to make sense to me. I was experiencing a miracle. Suddenly it dawned on me. The engineer had given me the answer I had been seeking. He was starting out on that long journey with only one green light to go by. If I had been in his place, I would want to see all the green lights for the entire journey. Impossible, of course, yet that was exactly what I was trying to do with my life, sitting in the station, going no place, because I was trying too hard to see what was ahead for me.

My thoughts kept coming. That engineer didn’t worry about trouble that he might encounter miles ahead. There probably would be some delays, some slowdowns, but wasn’t that why they had signal systems? Amber lights, reduce speed and take it easy. Red lights, real danger up ahead, stop. That was what made train travel safe. A good signal system.

I asked myself why I didn’t have a good signal system for my life. My answer was, I did have one. God had given it to me. He controls it, so it has to be foolproof. I started looking for a green light. Where could I find it? Well, if God created the green lights, why not ask Him? I did just that.

And now by praying each morning, I get my green light for that day. I also occasionally get amber lights that slow me down. Sometimes I get red lights that stop me before I crack up. No more worrying for me since that day two years ago when I made this discovery. During those two years, over seven hundred green lights have shown for me, and the trip through life is so much easier without the worry of what color the next light will be. No matter what color it may be, I will know what to do.

How John D. Rockefeller Lived on Borrowed Time For Forty-five Years

John D. Rockefeller, Sr., had accumulated his first million at the age of thirty, three. At the age of forty, three, he had built up the largest monopoly the world has ever seen, the great Standard Oil Company. But where was he at fifty, three? Worry had got him at fifty, three. Worry and high, tension living had already wrecked his health. At fifty, three he “looked like a mummy,” says John K. Winkler, one of his biographers.

At fifty, three, Rockefeller was attacked by mystifying digestive maladies that swept away his hair, even the eyelashes and all but a faint wisp of eyebrow. “So serious was his condition,” says Winkler, “that at one time John D. was compelled to exist on human milk.” According to the doctors, he had alopecia, a form of baldness that often starts with sheer nerves. He looked so startling, with his stark bald dome, that he had to wear a skullcap. Later, he had wigs made, $500 apiece, and for the rest of his life he wore these silver wigs.

Rockefeller had originally been blessed with an iron constitution. Reared on a farm, he had once had stalwart shoulders, an erect carriage, and a strong, brisk gait.

Yet at only fifty, three, when most men are at their prime, his shoulders drooped and he shambled when he walked. “When he looked in a glass,” says John T. Flynn, another of his biographers, “he saw an old man. The ceaseless work, the endless worry, the streams of abuse, the sleepless nights, and the lack of exercise and rest” had exacted their toll; they had brought him to his knees. He was now the richest man in the world; yet he had to live on a diet that a pauper would have scorned. His income at the time was a million dollars a week, but two dollars a week would probably have paid for all the food he could eat. Acidulated milk and a few biscuits were all the doctors would allow him. His skin had lost its color; it looked like old parchment drawn tight across his bones. And nothing but medical care, the best money could buy, kept him from dying at the age of fifty, three.

How did it happen? Worry. Shock. High, pressure and high, tension living. He “drove” himself literally to the edge of the grave. Even at the age of twenty, three, Rockefeller was already pursuing his goal with such grim determination that, according to those who knew him, “nothing lightened his countenance save news of a good bargain.” When he made a big profit, he would do a little war dance, throw his hat on the floor and break into a jig. But if he lost money, he was ill! He once shipped $40,000 worth of grain by way of the Great Lakes. No insurance. It cost too much: $150. That night a vicious storm raged over Lake Erie. Rockefeller was so worried about losing his cargo that when his partner, George Gardner, reached the office in the morning, he found John D. Rockefeller there, pacing the floor.

“Hurry,” he quavered. “Let’s see if we can take out insurance now, if it isn’t too late!” Gardner rushed uptown and got the insurance; but when he returned to the office, he found John D. in an even worse state of nerves. A telegram had arrived in the meantime: the cargo had landed, safe from the storm. He was sicker than ever now because they had “wasted” the $150! In fact, he was so sick about it that he had to go home and take to his bed. Think of it! At that time, his firm was doing gross business of $500,000 a year, yet he made himself so ill over $150 that he had to go to bed.

He had no time for play, no time for recreation, no time for anything except making money and teaching Sunday school. When his partner, George Gardner, purchased a second, hand yacht, with three other men, for $2,000, John D. was aghast, refused to go out in it. Gardner found him working at the office one Saturday afternoon, and pleaded: “Come on, John, let’s go for a sail. It will do you good. Forget about business. Have a little fun.” Rockefeller glared. “George Gardner,” he warned, “you are the most extravagant man I ever knew. You are injuring your credit at the banks, and my credit too. First thing you know, you’ll be wrecking our business. No, I won’t go on your yacht; I don’t ever want to see it!” And he stayed plugging in the office all Saturday afternoon.

The same lack of humor, the same lack of perspective, characterized John D. all through his business career. Years later he said: “I never placed my head upon the pillow at night without reminding myself that my success might be only temporary.”

With millions at his command, he never put his head upon his pillow without worrying about losing his fortune. No wonder worry wrecked his health. He had no time for play or recreation, never went to the theatre, never played cards, never went to a party. As Mark Hanna said, the man was mad about money. “Sane in every other respect, but mad about money.” Rockefeller had once confessed to a neighbor in Cleveland, Ohio, that he “wanted to be loved”; yet he was so cold and suspicious that few people even liked him. Morgan once balked at having to do business with him at all. “I don’t like the man,” he snorted. “I don’t want to have any dealings with him.” Rockefeller’s own brother hated him so much that he removed his children’s bodies from the family plot. “No one of my blood,” he said,” will ever rest in land controlled by John D.” Rockefeller’s employees and associates lived in holy fear of him, and here is the ironic part: he was afraid of them, afraid they would talk outside the office and “give secrets away”.

He had so little faith in human nature that once, when he signed a ten, year contract with an independent refiner, he made the man promise not to tell anyone, not even his wife! “Shut your mouth and ran your business”, that was his motto. Then at the very peak of his prosperity, with gold flowing into his coffers like hot yellow lava pouring down the sides of Vesuvius, his private world collapsed. Books and articles denounced the robber, baron war of the Standard Oil Company! , secret rebates with railroads, the ruthless crashing of all rivals. In the oil fields of Pennsylvania, John D. Rockefeller was the most hated man on earth. He was hanged in effigy by the men he had crushed. Many of them longed to tie a rope around his withered neck and hang him to the limb of a sour, apple tree. Letters breathing fire and brimstone poured into his office, letters threatening his life.

He hired bodyguards to keep his enemies from killing him. He attempted to ignore this cyclone of hate. He had once said cynically: “You may kick me and abuse me provided you will let me have my own way.” But he discovered that he was human after all. He couldn’t take hate and worry too. His health began to crack. He was puzzled and bewildered by this new enemy, illness, which attacked him from within. At first “he remained secretive about his occasional indispositions,” tried to put his illness out of his mind. But insomnia, indigestion, and the loss of his hair, all physical symptoms of worry and collapse, were not to be denied. Finally, his doctors told him the shocking truth. He could take his choice: his money and his worries, or his life. They warned him he must either retire or die. He retired. But before he retired, worry, greed, fear had already wrecked his health.

When Ida Tarbell, America’s most celebrated female writer of biographies, saw him, she was shocked. She wrote: “An awful age was in his face. He was the oldest man I have ever seen.” Old? Why, Rockefeller was then several years younger than General MacArthur was when he recaptured the Philippines! But he was such a physical wreck that Ida Tarbell pitied him. She was working at that time on her powerful book which condemned the Standard Oil and all that it stood for; she certainly had no cause to love the man who had built up this “octopus”. Yet, she said that when she saw John D. Rockefeller teaching a Sunday school class, eagerly watching the faces of all those around him, “I had a feeling which I had not expected, and which time intensified. I was sorry for him. I know no companion so terrible as fear.”

When the doctors undertook to save Rockefeller’s life, they gave him three rules, three rules which he observed, to the letter, for the rest of his life. Here they are:

1. Avoid worry. Never worry about anything, under any kind of circumstances.

2. Relax, and take plenty of mild exercise in the open air.

3. Watch your diet. Always stop eating while you’re still a little hungry.

John D. Rockefeller obeyed those rules; and they probably saved his life. He retired. He learned to play golf. He went in for gardening. He chatted with his neighbors. He played games. He sang songs.

But he did something else too. “During days of torture and nights of insomnia,” says Winkler, “John D. had time for reflection.” He began to think of other people. He stopped thinking, for once, of how much money he could get; and he began to wonder how much that money could buy in terms of human happiness.

In short. Rockefeller now began to give his millions away! Some of the time it wasn’t easy. When he offered money to a church, pulpits all over the country thundered back with cries of “tainted money!” But he kept on giving. He learned of a starving little college on the shores of Lake Michigan that was being foreclosed because of its mortgage. He came to its rescue and poured millions of dollars into that college and built it into the now world famous University of Chicago. He tried to help the Negroes. He gave money to Negro universities like Tuskegee College, where funds were needed to carry on the work of George Washington Carver. He helped to fight hookworm. When Dr. Charles W. Stiles, the hookworm authority, said: “Fifty cents’ worth of medicine will cure a man of this disease which ravages the South, but who will give the fifty cents?” Rockefeller gave it. He spent millions on hookworm, stamping out the greatest scourge that has ever handicapped the South. And then he went further. He established a great international foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, which was to fight disease and ignorance all over the world.

I speak with feeling of this work, for there is a possibility that I may owe my life to the Rockefeller Foundation. How well I remember that when I was in China in 1932, cholera was raging all over the nation. The Chinese peasants were dying like flies; yet in the midst of all this horror, we were able to go to the Rockefeller Medical College in Peking and get a vaccination to protect us from the plague. Chinese and “foreigners” alike, we were able to do that. And that was when I got my first understanding of what Rockefeller’s millions were doing for the world.

Never before in history has there ever been anything even remotely like the Rockefeller Foundation. It is something unique. Rockefeller knew that all over the world there are many fine movements that men of vision start. Research is undertaken; colleges are founded; doctors struggle on to fight a disease, but only too often this high, minded work has to die for lack of funds. He decided to help these pioneers of humanity, not to “take them over”, but to give them some money and help them help themselves. Today you and I can thank John D. Rockefeller for the miracles of penicillin, and for dozens of other discoveries which his money helped to finance. You can thank him for the fact that your children no longer die from spinal meningitis, a disease that used to kill four out of five. And you can thank him for part of the inroads we have made on malaria and tuberculosis, on influenza and diphtheria, and many other diseases that still plague the world.

And what about Rockefeller? When he gave his money away, did he gain peace of mind? Yes, he was contented at last. “If the public thought of him after 1900 as brooding over the attacks on the Standard Oil,” said Allan Kevins, “the public was much mistaken.”

Rockefeller was happy. He had changed so completely that he didn’t worry at all. In fact, he refused even to lose one night’s sleep when he was forced to accept the greatest defeat of his career!

That defeat came when the corporation he had built, the huge Standard Oil, was ordered to pay “the heaviest fine in history”. According to the United States Government, the Standard Oil was a monopoly, in direct violation of the antitrust laws. The battle raged for five years. The best legal brains in the land fought on interminably in what was, up to then, the longest court war in history. But Standard Oil lost.

When Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis handed down his decision, lawyers for the defense feared that old John D. would take it very hard. But they didn’t know how much he’d changed.

That night one of the lawyers got John D. on the phone. He discussed the decision as gently as he could, and then said with concern: “I hope you won’t let this decision upset you, Mr. Rockefeller. I hope you’ll get your night’s sleep!”

And old John D.? Why, he crackled right back across the wire: “Don’t worry, Mr. Johnson, I intend to get a night’s sleep. And don’t let it bother you either. Good night!”

That from the man who had once taken to his bed because he had lost $150! Yes, it took a long time for John D. to conquer worry. He was “dying” at fifty-three, but he lived to ninety-eight!

I Was Committing Slow Suicide Because I Didn’t Know How to Relax

by Paul Sampson

Up to six months ago, I was rushing through life in high gear. I was always tense, never relaxed. I arrived home from work every night worried and exhausted from nervous fatigue. Why? Because no one ever said to me: “Paul, you are killing yourself. Why don’t you slow down? Why don’t you relax?”

I would get up fast in the morning, eat fast, shave fast, dress fast, and drive to work as if I were afraid the steering wheel would fly out the window if I didn’t have a death grip on it. I worked fast, hurried home, and at night I even tried to sleep fast.

I was in such a state that I went to see a famous nerve specialist in Detroit. He told me to relax. He told me to think of relaxing all the time, to think about it when I was working, driving, eating, and trying to go to sleep. He told me that I was committing slow suicide because I didn’t know how to relax.

Ever since then I have practiced relaxation. When I go to bed at night, I don’t try to go to sleep until I’ve consciously relaxed my body and my breathing. And now I wake up in the morning rested, a big improvement, because I used to wake up in the morning tired and tense. I relax now when I eat and when I drive. To be sure, I am alert when driving, but I drive with my mind now instead of my nerves. The most important place I relax is at my work. Several times a day I stop everything and take inventory of myself to see if I am entirely relaxed. When the phone rings now, no longer do I grab it as though someone were trying to beat me to it; and when someone is talking to me, I’m as relaxed as a sleeping baby.

The result? Life is much more pleasant and enjoyable; and I’m completely free of nervous fatigue and nervous worry.

A Real Miracle Happened to Me

by Mrs. John Burger

Worry had completely defeated me. My mind was so confused and troubled that I could see no joy in living. My nerves were so strained that I could neither sleep at night nor relax by day. My three young children were widely separated, living with relatives. My husband, having recently returned from the armed service, was in another city trying to establish a law practice. I felt all the insecurities and uncertainties of the postwar readjustment period.

I was threatening my husband’s career, my children’s natural endowment of a happy, normal home life, and I was also threatening my own life. My husband could find no housing, and the only solution was to build. Everything depended on my getting well. The more I realized this and the harder I would try, the greater would be my fear of failure. Then I developed a fear of planning for any responsibility. I felt that I could no longer trust myself. I felt I was a complete failure.

When all was darkest and there seemed to be no help, my mother did something for me that I shall never forget or cease being grateful for. She shocked me into fighting back. She upbraided me for giving in and for losing control of my nerves and my mind. She challenged me to get up out of bed and fight for all I had. She said I was giving in to the situation, fearing it instead of facing it, running away from life instead of living it.

So I did start fighting from that day on. That very weekend I told my parents they could go home, because I was going to take over; and I did what seemed impossible at the time. I was left alone to care for my two younger children. I slept well, I began to eat better, and my spirits began to improve. A week later when they returned to visit me again, they found me singing at my ironing. I had a sense of well, being because I had begun to fight a battle and I was winning. I shall never forget this lesson. If a situation seems insurmountable, face it! Start fighting! Don’t give in!

From that time on I forced myself to work, and lost myself in my work. Finally I gathered my children together and joined my husband in our new home. I resolved that I would become well enough to give my lovely family a strong, happy mother. I became engrossed with plans for our home, plans for my children, plans for my husband, plans for everything, except for me. I became too busy to think of myself. And it was then that the real miracle happened.

I grew stronger and stronger and could wake up with the joy of wellbeing, the joy of planning for the new day ahead, the joy of living. And although days of depression did creep in occasionally after that, especially when I was tired, I would tell myself not to think or try to reason with myself on those days, and gradually they became fewer and fewer and finally disappeared.

Now, a year later, I have a very happy successful husband, a beautiful home that I can work in sixteen hours a day, and three healthy, happy children, and for myself, peace of mind!

How Benjamin Franklin conquered worry

A letter from Benjamin Franklin to Joseph Priestly

The latter invited to become librarian for the Earl of Shelburne asked Franklin’s advice. Franklin in his letter states his method of solving problems without worrying.

London, September 19, 1772. Dear Sir, in the affair of so much importance to you wherein you ask my advice, I cannot, for want of sufficient premise advise you what to determine, but if you please I will tell you how. When these difficult cases occur, they are difficult chiefly because while we have them under consideration all the reasons pro and con are not present to the mind of the same time, but sometimes one set present themselves and at other times another, the first being out of sight. Hence the various purposes or inclinations that alternately prevail and the uncertainty that perplexes us. To get over this, my way is to divide half a sheet of paper by a line into two columns, writing over the one pro and over the other con. Then during three or four days consideration, I put down under the different heads, short hints of the different motives that at different times occur to me for or against the measure. When I have thus got them all together in one view, I endeavor to estimate their respective weights. And where I find to one on each side that seem equal, I strike them both out. If I find a reason pro equal to some two reasons con, I can strike out the three. If I judge some two reasons con equal to some three reasons pro, I strike out the five. And thus proceeding I find at length where the balance lies. And if after a day or two of further consideration, nothing new that is of importance occurs on either side, I come to a determination accordingly.

And though the weight of reasons cannot be taken with the precision of algebraic quantities, yet when each is thus considered separately and comparatively and the whole lies before me, I think I can judge better and I’m less likely to make a rash step. And in fact I have found great advantage from this kind of equation and what may be called moral or Prudential algebra.

Wishing sincerely that you may determine for the best. I have ever my dear friend yours most affectionately Benton Franklin.

I Was So Worried I Didn’t Eat a Bite of Solid Food for Eighteen Days

by Kathryne Holcombe Farmer

Three months ago, I was so worried that I didn’t sleep for four days and nights; and I did not eat a bite of solid food for eighteen days. Even the smell of food made me violently sick. I cannot find words to describe the mental anguish I endured. I wonder whether hell has any worse tortures than what I went through. I felt as if I would go insane or die. I knew that I couldn’t possibly continue living as I was.

The turning point of my life was the day I was given an advance copy of this book. During the last three months, I have practically lived with this book, studying every page, desperately trying to find a new way of life. The change that has occurred in my mental outlook and emotional stability is almost unbelievable. I am now able to endure the battles of each passing day. I now realize that in the past, I was being driven half mad not by today’s problems but by the bitterness and anxiety over something that had happened yesterday or that I feared might happen tomorrow.

But now, when I find myself starting to worry about anything, I immediately stop and start to apply some of the principles I learned from studying this book. If I am tempted to tense up over something that must be done today, I get busy and do it immediately and get it off my mind.

When I am faced with the kind of problems that used to drive me half crazy, I now calmly set about trying to apply the three steps outlined in Chapter 2, Part One. First, I ask myself what is the worst that can possibly happen. Second, I try to accept it mentally. Third, I concentrate on the problem and see how I can improve the worst which I am already willing to accept, if I have to.

When I find myself worrying about a thing I cannot change, and do not want to accept, I stop myself short and repeat this little prayer:

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

Since reading this book, I am really experiencing a new and glorious way of life. I am no longer destroying my health and happiness by anxiety. I can sleep nine hours a night now. I enjoy my food. A veil has been lifted from me. A door has been opened. I can now see and enjoy the beauty of the world which surrounds me. I thank God for life now and for the privilege of living in such a wonderful world.

May I suggest that you also read this book over: keep it by your bed: underscore the parts that apply to your problems. Study it; use it. For this is not a “reading book” in the ordinary sense; it is written as a “guidebook” to a new way of life.