Part Two In A Nutshell 3 страница

what basis there is, if any, for our gnawing anxieties. That is precisely what Frederick J.

Mahlstedt did when he feared he was lying in his grave. Here is his story as he told it to

one of our adult-education classes in New York:

" Early in June, 1944, I was lying in a slit trench near Omaha Beach. I was with the 999th

Signal Service Company, and we had just 'dug in' in Normandy. As I looked around at that

slit trench-just a rectangular hole in the ground-I said to myself: 'This looks just like a

grave. ' When I lay down and tried to sleep in it, it felt like a grave. I couldn't help saying

to myself: 'Maybe this is my grave. ' When the German bombers began coming over at 11

p. m., and the bombs started falling, I was scared stiff. For the first two or three nights I

couldn't sleep at all. By the fourth or fifth night, I was almost a nervous wreck. I knew

that if I didn't do something, I would go stark crazy. So I reminded myself that five

nights had passed, and I was still alive; and so was every man in our outfit. Only two had

been injured, and they had been hurt, not by German bombs, but by falling flak, from

our own anti-aircraft guns. I decided to stop worrying by doing something constructive.

So I built a thick wooden roof over my slit trench, to protect myself from flak. I thought

of the vast area over which my unit was spread. I told myself that the only way I could

be killed in that deep, narrow slit trench was by a direct hit; and I figured out that the

chance of a direct hit on me was not one in ten thousand. After a couple of nights of

looking at it in this way, I calmed down and slept even through the bomb raids! "

The United States Navy used the statistics of the law of averages to buck up the morale

of their men. One ex-sailor told me that when he and his shipmates were assigned to

high-octane tankers, they were worried stiff. They all believed that if a tanker loaded

with high-octane gasoline was hit by a torpedo, it exploded and blew everybody to

kingdom come.

But the U. S. Navy knew otherwise; so the Navy issued exact figures, showing that out of

one hundred tankers hit by torpedoes sixty stayed afloat; and of the forty that did sink,

only five sank in less than ten minutes. That meant time to get off the ship-it also

meant casualties were exceedingly small. Did this help morale? " This knowledge of the

law of averages wiped out my jitters, " said Clyde W. Maas, of 1969 Walnut Street, St.

Paul, Minnesota-the man who told this story. " The whole crew felt better. We knew we

had a chance; and that, by the law of averages, we probably wouldn't be killed. " To

break the worry habit before it breaks you-here is Rule 3:

" Let's examine the record. " Let's ask ourselves: " What are the chances, according to the

law of averages, that this event I am worrying about will ever occur? "

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter 9 - Co-Operate With The Inevitable

When I was a little boy, I was playing with some of my friends in the attic of an old,

abandoned log house in north-west Missouri. As I climbed down out of the attic, I rested

my feet on a window-sill for a moment-and then jumped. I had a ring on my left

forefinger; and as I jumped, the ring caught on a nailhead and tore off my finger.

I screamed. I was terrified. I was positive I was going to die. But after the hand healed, I

never worried about it for one split second. What would have been the use? ... I

accepted the inevitable.

Now I often go for a month at a time without even thinking about the fact that I have

only three fingers and a thumb on my left hand.

A few years ago, I met a man who was running a freight elevator in one of the

downtown office buildings in New York. I noticed that his left hand had been cut off at

the wrist. I asked him if the loss of that hand bothered him. He said: " Oh, no, I hardly

ever think about it. I am not married; and the only time I ever think about it is when I

try to thread a needle. "

It is astonishing how quickly we can accept almost any situation-if we have to-and

adjust ourselves to it and forget about it.

I often think of an inscription on the ruins of a fifteenth-century cathedral in

Amsterdam, Holland. This inscription says in Flemish: " It is so. It cannot be otherwise. "

As you and I march across the decades of time, we are going to meet a lot of unpleasant

situations that are so. They cannot be otherwise. We have our choice. We can either

accept them as inevitable and adjust ourselves to them, or we can ruin our lives with

rebellion and maybe end up with a nervous breakdown.

Here is a bit of sage advice from one of my favourite philosophers, William James. " Be

willing to have it so, " he said. " Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to

overcoming the consequence of any misfortune. " Elizabeth Connley, of 2840 NE 49th

Avenue, Portland, Oregon, had to find that out the hard way. Here is a letter that she

wrote me recently: " On the very day that America was celebrating the victory of our

armed forces in North Africa, " the letter says, " I received a telegram from the War

Department: my nephew- the person I loved most-was missing in action. A short time

later, another telegram arrived saying he was dead.

" I was prostrate with grief. Up to that time, I had felt that life had been very good to

me. I had a job I loved. I had helped to raise this nephew. He represented to me all that

was fine and good in young manhood. I had felt that all the bread I had cast upon the

waters was coming back to me as cake! ... Then came this telegram. My whole world

collapsed. I felt there was nothing left to live for. I neglected my work; neglected my

friends. I let everything go. I was bitter and resentful. Why did my loving nephew have

to be taken? Why did this good boy-with life all before him-why did he have to be killed?

I couldn't accept it. My grief was so overwhelming that I decided to give up my work,

and go away and hide myself in my tears and bitterness.

" I was clearing out my desk, getting ready to quit, when I came across a letter that I had

forgotten-a letter from this nephew who had been killed, a letter he had written to me

when my mother had died a few years ago. 'Of course, we will miss her, ' the letter said,

'and especially you. But I know you'll carry on. Your own personal philosophy will make

you do that. I shall never forget the beautiful truths you taught me. Wherever I am, or

how far apart we may be, I shall always remember that you taught me to smile, and to

take whatever comes, like a man. '

" I read and reread that letter. It seemed as if he were there beside me, speaking to me.

He seemed to be saying to me: 'Why don't you do what you taught me to do? Carry on,

no matter what happens. Hide your private sorrows under a smile and carry on. '

" So, I went back to my work. I stopped being bitter and rebellious. I kept saying to

myself: 'It is done. I can't change it. But I can and will carry on as he wished me to do. ' I

threw all my mind and strength into my work. I wrote letters to soldiers-to other

people's boys. I joined an adult-education class at night-seeking out new interests and

making new friends. I can hardly believe the change that has come over me. I have

ceased mourning over the past that is for ever gone. I am living each day now with joy-

just as my nephew would have wanted me to do. I have made peace with life. I have

accepted my fate. I am now living a fuller and more complete life than I had ever

known. "

Elizabeth Connley, out in Portland, Oregon, learned what all of us will have to learn

sooner or later: namely, that we must accept and co-operate with the inevitable. " It is

so. It cannot be otherwise. " That is not an easy lesson to learn. Even kings on their

thrones have to keep reminding themselves of it. The late George V had these framed

words hanging on the wall of his library in Buckingham Palace: " Teach me neither to cry

for the moon nor over spilt milk. " The same thought is expressed by Schopenhauer in

this way: " A good supply of resignation is of the first importance in providing for the

journey of life. "

Obviously, circumstances alone do not make us happy or unhappy. It is the way we react

to circumstances that determines our feelings. Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven is

within you. That is where the kingdom of hell is, too.

We can all endure disaster and tragedy and triumph over them-if we have to. We may

not think we can, but we have surprisingly strong inner resources that will see us

through if we will only make use of them. We are stronger than we think.

The late Booth Tarkington always said: " I could take anything that life could force upon

me except one thing: blindness. I could never endure that. "

Then one day, when he was along in his sixties, Tarkington glanced down at the carpet

on the floor. The colours were blurred. He couldn't see the pattern. He went to a

specialist. He learned the tragic truth: he was losing his sight. One eye was nearly blind;

the other would follow. That which he feared most had come upon him.

And how did Tarkington react to this " worst of all disasters"? Did he feel: " This is it! This

is the end of my life"? No, to his amazement, he felt quite gay. He even called upon his

humour. Floating " specks" annoyed him; they would swim across his eyes and cut off his

vision. Yet when the largest of these specks would swim across his sight, he would say:

" Hello! There's Grandfather again! Wonder where he's going on this fine morning! "

How could fate ever conquer a spirit like that? The answer is it couldn't. When total

blindness closed in, Tarkington said: " I found I could take the loss of my eyesight, just as

a man can take anything else. If I lost all five of my senses, I know I could live on inside

my mind. For it is in the mind we see, and in the mind we live, whether we know it or

not. "

In the hope of restoring his eyesight, Tarkington had to go through more than twelve

operations within one year. With local anaesthetic! Did he rail against this? He knew it

had to be done. He knew he couldn't escape it, so the only way to lessen his suffering

was to take it with grace. He refused a private room at the hospital and went into a

ward, where he could be with other people who had troubles, too. He tried to cheer

them up. And when he had to submit to repeated operations-fully conscious of what was

being done to his eyes-he tried to remember how fortunate he was. " How wonderful! " he

said. " How wonderful, that science now has the skill to operate on anything so delicate

as the human eye! "

The average man would have been a nervous wreck if he had had to endure more than

twelve operations and blindness. Yet Tarkington said: " I would not exchange this

experience for a happier one. " It taught him acceptance. It taught him that nothing life

could bring him was beyond his strength to endure. It taught him, as John Milton

discovered, that " It is not miserable to be blind, it is only miserable not to be able to

endure blindness. "

Margaret Fuller, the famous New England feminist, once offered as her credo: " I accept

the Universe! "

When grouchy old Thomas Carlyle heard that in England, he snorted: " By gad, she'd

better! " Yes, and by gad, you and I had better accept the inevitable, too!

If we rail and kick against it and grow bitter, we won't change the inevitable; but we

will change ourselves. I know. I have tried it.

I once refused to accept an inevitable situation with which I was confronted. I played

the fool and railed against it, and rebelled. I turned my nights into hells of insomnia. I

brought upon myself everything I didn't want. Finally, after a year of self-torture, I had

to accept what I knew from the outset I couldn't possibly alter.

I should have cried out years ago with old Walt Whitman:

Oh, to confront night, storms, hunger,

Ridicule, accident, rebuffs as the trees

and animals do.

I spent twelve years working with cattle; yet I never saw a Jersey cow running a

temperature because the pasture was burning up from a lack of rain or because of sleet

and cold or because her boy friend was paying too much attention to another heifer.

The animals confront night, storms, and hunger calmly; so they never have nervous

breakdowns or stomach ulcers; and they never go insane.

Am I advocating that we simply bow down to all the adversities that come our way? Not

by a long shot! That is mere fatalism. As long as there is a chance that we can save a

situation, let's fight! But when common sense tells us that we are up against something

that is so-and cannot be otherwise- then, in the name of our sanity, let's not look before

and after and pine for what is not.

The late Dean Hawkes of Columbia University told me that he had taken a Mother Goose

rhyme as one of his mottoes:

For every ailment under the sun.

There is a remedy, or there is none;

If there be one, try to find it;

If there be none, never mind it.

While writing this book, I interviewed a number of the leading business men of America;

and I was impressed by the fact that they co-operated with the inevitable and led lives

singularly free from worry. If they hadn't done that, they would have cracked under the

strain. Here are a few examples of what I mean:

J. C. Penney, founder of the nation-wide chain of Penney stores, said to me: " I wouldn't

worry if I lost every cent I have because I don't see what is to be gained by worrying. I

do the best job I possibly can; and leave the results in the laps of the gods. "

Henry Ford told me much the same thing. " When I can't handle events, " he said, " I let

them handle themselves. "

When I asked K. T. Keller, president of the Chrysler Corporation, how he kept from

worrying, he said: " When I am up against a tough situation, if I can do anything about it,

I do it. If I can't, I just forget it. I never worry about the future, because I know no man

living can possibly figure out what is going to happen in the future. There are so many

forces that will affect that future! Nobody can tell what prompts those forces-or

understand them. So why worry about them? " K. T. Keller would be embarrassed if you

told him he is a philosopher. He is just a good business man, yet he has stumbled on the

same philosophy that Epictetus taught in Rome nineteen centuries ago. " There is only

one way to happiness, " Epictetus taught the Romans, " and that is to cease worrying

about things which are beyond the power of our will. "

Sarah Bernhardt, the " divine Sarah" was an illustrious example of a woman who knew

how to co-operate with the inevitable. For half a century, she had been the reigning

queen of the theatre on four continents-the best-loved actress on earth. Then when she

was seventy-one and broke-she had lost all her money-her physician, Professor Pozzi of

Paris, told her he would have to amputate her leg. While crossing the Atlantic, she had

fallen on deck during a storm, and injured her leg severely. Phlebitis developed. Her leg

shrank. The pain became so intense that the doctor felt her leg had to be amputated.

He was almost afraid to tell the stormy, tempestuous " divine Sarah" what had to be

done. He fully expected that the terrible news would set off an explosion of hysteria.

But he was wrong. Sarah looked at him a moment, and then said quietly: " If it has to be,

it has to be. " It was fate.

As she was being wheeled away to the operating room, her son stood weeping. She

waved to him with a gay gesture and said cheerfully: " Don't go away. I'll be right back. "

On the way to the operating room she recited a scene from one of her plays. Someone

asked her if she were doing this to cheer herself up. She said: " No, to cheer up the

doctors and nurses. It will be a strain on them. "

After recovering from the operation, Sarah Bernhardt went on touring the world and

enchanting audiences for another seven years.

" When we stop fighting the inevitable, " said Elsie Mac-Cormick in a Reader's Digest

article, " we release energy which enables us to create a richer life. "

No one living has enough emotion and vigour to fight the inevitable and, at the same

time, enough left over to create a new life. Choose one or the other. You can either

bend with the inevitable sleet-storms of life-or you can resist them and break!

I saw that happen on a farm I own in Missouri. I planted a score of trees on that farm. At

first, they grew with astonishing rapidity. Then a sleet-storm encrusted each twig and

branch with a heavy coating of ice. Instead of bowing gracefully to their burden, these

trees proudly resisted and broke and split under the load-and had to be destroyed. They

hadn't learned the wisdom of the forests of the north. I have travelled hundreds of miles

through the evergreen forests of Canada, yet I have never seen a spruce or a pine

broken by sleet or ice. These evergreen forests know how to bend, how to bow down

their branches, how to co-operate with the inevitable.

The masters of jujitsu teach their pupils to " bend like the willow; don't resist like the

oak. "

Why do you think your automobile tyres stand up on the road and take so much

punishment? At first, the manufacturers tried to make a tyre that would resist the

shocks of the road. It was soon cut to ribbons. Then they made a tyre that would absorb

the shocks of the road. That tyre could " take it". You and I will last longer, and enjoy

smoother riding, if we learn to absorb the shocks and jolts along the rocky road of life.

What will happen to you and me if we resist the shocks of life instead of absorbing

them? What will happen if we refuse to " bend like the willow" and insist on resisting like

the oak? The answer is easy. We will set up a series of inner conflicts. We will be

worried, tense, strained, and neurotic.

If we go still further and reject the harsh world of reality and retreat into a dream

world of our own making, we will then be insane.

During the war, millions of frightened soldiers had either to accept the inevitable or

break under the strain. To illustrate, let's take the case of William H. Casselius, 7126

76th Street, Glendale, New York. Here is a prize-winning talk he gave before one of my

adult-education classes in New York:

" Shortly after I joined the Coast Guard, I was assigned to one of the hottest spots on this

side of the Atlantic. I was made a supervisor of explosives. Imagine it. Me! A biscuit

salesman becoming a supervisor of explosives! The very thought of finding yourself

standing on top of thousands of tons of T. N. T. is enough to chill the marrow in a cracker

salesman's bones. I was given only two days of instruction; and what I learned filled me

with even more terror. I'll never forget my first assignment. On a dark, cold, foggy day, I

was given my orders on the open pier of Caven Point, Bayonne, New Jersey.

" I was assigned to Hold No. 5 on my ship. I had to work down in that hold with five

longshoremen. They had strong backs, but they knew nothing whatever about

explosives. And they were loading blockbusters, each one of which contained a ton of

T. N. T. -enough explosive to blow that old ship to kingdom come. These blockbusters

were being lowered by two cables. I kept saying to myself: Suppose one of those cables

slipped-or broke! Oh, boy! Was I scared! I trembled. My mouth was dry. My knees

sagged. My heart pounded. But I couldn't run away. That would be desertion. I would be

disgraced-my parents would be disgraced-and I might be shot for desertion. I couldn't

run. I had to stay. I kept looking at the careless way those longshoremen were handling

those blockbusters. The ship might blow up any minute. After an hour or more of this

spine-chilling terror, I began to use a little common sense. I gave myself a good talking

to. I said: 'Look here! So you are blown up. So what! You will never know the difference!

It will be an easy way to die. Much better than dying by cancer. Don't be a fool. You

can't expect to live for ever! You've got to do this job-or be shot. So you might as well

like it. "

" I talked to myself like that for hours; and I began to feel at ease. Finally, I overcame

my worry and fears by forcing myself to accept an inevitable situation.

" I'll never forget that lesson. Every time I am tempted now to worry about something I

can't possibly change, I shrug my shoulders and say: 'Forget it. ' I find that it works-even

for a biscuit salesman. " Hooray! Let's give three cheers and one cheer more for the

biscuit salesman of the Pinafore.

Outside the crucifixion of Jesus, the most famous death scene in all history was the

death of Socrates. Ten thousand centuries from now, men will still be reading and

cherishing Plato's immortal description of it-one of the most moving and beautiful

passages in all literature. Certain men of Athens- jealous and envious of old barefooted

Socrates-trumped up charges against him and had him tried and condemned to death.

When the friendly jailer gave Socrates the poison cup to drink, the jailer said: " Try to

bear lightly what needs must be. " Socrates did. He faced death with a calmness and

resignation that touched the hem of divinity.

" Try to bear lightly what needs must be. " Those words were spoken 399 years before

Christ was born; but this worrying old world needs those words today more than ever

before: " Try to bear lightly what needs must be. "

During the past eight years, I have been reading practically every book and magazine

article I could find that dealt even remotely with banishing worry. ... Would you like to

know what is the best single bit of advice about worry that I have ever discovered in all

that reading? Well, here it is-summed up in twenty-seven words-words that you and I

ought to paste on our bathroom mirrors, so that each time we wash our faces we could

also wash away all worry from our minds. This priceless prayer was written by Dr.

Reinhold Niebuhr, Professor of Applied Christianity, Union Theological Seminary,

Broadway and 120th Street, New York.

God grant me the serenity To accept the things I cannot change; The courage to change

the things I can; And the wisdom to know the difference.

To break the worry habit before it breaks you, Rule 4 is:

Co-operate with the inevitable.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter 10 - Put A " Stop-Loss" Order On Your Worries

WOULD you like to know how to make money on the Stock Exchange? Well, so would a

million other people-and if I knew the answer, this book would sell for a fabulous price.

However, there's one good idea that some successful operators use. This story was told

to me by Charles Roberts, an investment counselor with offices at 17 East 42nd Street,

New York.

" I originally came up to New York from Texas with twenty thousand dollars which my

friends had given me to invest in the stock market, " Charles Roberts told me. " I

thought, " he continued, " that I knew the ropes in the stock market; but I lost every

cent. True, I made a lot of profit on some deals; but I ended up by losing everything.

" I did not mind so much losing my own money, " Mr. Roberts explained, " but I felt terrible

about having lost my friends' money, even though they could well afford it. I dreaded

facing them again after our venture had turned out so unfortunately, but, to my

astonishment, they not only were good sports about it, but proved to be incurable

optimists.

" I knew I had been trading on a hit-or-miss basis and depending largely on luck and other

people's opinions. As H. I. Phillips said, I had been 'playing the stock market by ear'.

" I began to think over my mistakes and I determined that before I went back into the

market again, I would try to find out what it was all about. So I sought out and became

acquainted with one of the most successful speculators who ever lived: Burton S.

Castles. I believed I could learn a great deal from him because he had long enjoyed the

reputation of being successful year after year and I knew that such a career was not the

result of mere chance or luck.

" He asked me a few questions about how I had traded before and then told me what I

believe is the most important principle in trading. He said: 'I put a stop-loss order on