Part Two In A Nutshell 18 страница

Indian Territories became the state of Oklahoma on November 16, 1907, I have been

continuously honoured by the Democrats of my adopted state by nominations-first for

State Senate, then for Congress, and later for the United States Senate.

I have told this story, not to brag about my own fleeting accomplishments, which can't

possibly interest anyone else. I have told it wholly with the hope that it may give

renewed courage and confidence to some poor boy who is now suffering from the

worries and shyness and feeling of inferiority that devastated my life when I was

wearing my father's cast-off clothes and gaiter shoes that almost dropped off my feet as

I walked.

(Editor's note: It is interesting to know that Elmer Thomas, who was so ashamed of his

ill-fitting clothes as a youth, was later voted the best-dressed man in the United States

Senate. )

~~~~

I Lived In The Garden Of Allah

R. V. C. Bodley

Descendant of Sir Thomas Bodley, founder of the Bodleian Library, Oxford Author of

Wind in the Sahara, The Messenger, and fourteen other volumes

IN 1918, I turned my back on the world I had known and went to north-west Africa and

lived with the Arabs in the Sahara, the Garden of Allah. I lived there seven years. I

learned to speak the language of the nomads. I wore their clothes, I ate their food, and

adopted their mode of life, which has changed very little during the last twenty

centuries. I became an owner of sheep and slept on the ground in the Arabs' tents. I also

made a detailed study of their religion. In fact, I later wrote a book about Mohammed,

entitled The Messenger.

Those seven years which I spent with these wandering shepherds were the most

peaceful and contented years of my life.

I had already had a rich and varied experience: I was born of English parents in Paris;

and lived in France for nine years. Later I was educated at Eton and at the Royal Military

College at Sandhurst. Then I spent six years as a British army officer in India, where I

played polo, and hunted, and explored in the Himalayas as well as doing some

soldiering. I fought through the First World War and, at its close, I was sent to the Paris

Conference as an assistant military attaché. I was shocked and disappointed at what I

saw there. During the four years of slaughter on the Western Front, I had believed we

were fighting to save civilisation. But at the Paris Peace Conference, I saw selfish

politicians laying the groundwork for the Second World War-each country grabbing all it

could for itself, creating national antagonisms, and reviving the intrigues of secret

diplomacy.

I was sick of war, sick of the army, sick of society. For the first time in my career, I

spent sleepless nights, worrying about what I should do with my life. Lloyd George urged

me to go in for politics. I was considering taking his advice when a strange thing

happened, a strange thing that shaped and determined my life for the next seven years.

It all came from a conversation that lasted less than two hundred seconds-a

conversation with " Ted" Lawrence, " Lawrence of Arabia", the most colourful and

romantic figure produced by the First World War. He had lived in the desert with the

Arabs and he advised me to do the same thing. At first, it sounded fantastic.

However, I was determined to leave the army, and I had to do something. Civilian

employers did not want to hire men like me-ex-officers of the regular army-especially

when the labour market was jammed with millions of unemployed. So I did as Lawrence

suggested: I went to live with the Arabs. I am glad I did so. They taught me how to

conquer worry. Like all faithful Moslems, they are fatalists. They believe that every

word Mohammed wrote in the Koran is the divine revelation of Allah. So when the Koran

says: " God created you and all your actions, " they accept it literally. That is why they

take life so calmly and never hurry or get into unnecessary tempers when things go

wrong. They know that what is ordained is ordained; and no one but God can alter

anything. However, that doesn't mean that in the face of disaster, they sit down and do

nothing. To illustrate, let me tell you of a fierce, burning windstorm of the sirocco

which I experienced when I was living in the Sahara. It howled and screamed for three

days and nights. It was so strong, so fierce, that it blew sand from the Sahara hundreds

of miles across the Mediterranean and sprinkled it over the Rhone Valley in France. The

wind was so hot I felt as if the hair was being scorched off my head. My throat was

parched. My eyes burned. My teeth were full of grit. I felt as if I were standing in front

of a furnace in a glass factory. I was driven as near crazy as a man can be and retain his

sanity. But the Arabs didn't complain. They shrugged their shoulders and said:

" Mektoub! " ... " It is written. "

But immediately after the storm was over, they sprang into action: they slaughtered all

the lambs because they knew they would die anyway; and by slaughtering them at once,

they hoped to save the mother sheep. After the lambs were slaughtered, the flocks

were driven southward to water. This was all done calmly, without worry or complaining

or mourning over their losses. The tribal chief said: " It is not too bad. We might have

lost everything. But praise God, we have forty per cent of our sheep left to make a new

start. "

I remember another occasion, when we were motoring across the desert and a tyre blew

out. The chauffeur had forgotten to mend the spare tyre. So there we were with only

three tyres. I fussed and fumed and got excited and asked the Arabs what we were

going to do. They reminded me that getting excited wouldn't help, that it only made

one hotter. The blown-out tyre, they said, was the will of Allah and nothing could be

done about it. So we started on, crawling along on the rim of a wheel. Presently the car

spluttered and stopped. We were out of petrol 1 The chief merely remarked: " Mektoub! "

and, there again, instead of shouting at the driver because he had not taken on enough

petrol, everyone remained calm and we walked to our destination, singing as we went.

The seven years I spent with the Arabs convinced me that the neurotics, the insane, the

drunks of America and Europe are the product of the hurried and harassed lives we live

in our so-called civilisation.

As long as I lived in the Sahara, I had no worries. I found there, in the Garden of Allah,

the serene contentment and physical well-being that so many of us are seeking with

tenseness and despair.

Many people scoff at fatalism. Maybe they are right. Who knows? But all of us must be

able to see how our fates are often determined for us. For example, if I had not spoken

to Lawrence of Arabia at three minutes past noon on a hot August day in 1919, all the

years that have elapsed since then would have been completely different. Looking back

over my life, I can see how it has been shaped and moulded time and again by events

far beyond my control. The Arabs call it mektoub, kismet-the will of Allah. Call it

anything you wish. It does strange things to you. I only know that today-seventeen years

after leaving the Sahara-I still maintain that happy resignation to the inevitable which I

learned from the Arabs. That philosophy has done more to settle my nerves than a

thousand sedatives could have achieved.

You and I are not Mohammedans: we don't want to be fatalists. But when the fierce,

burning winds blow over our lives-and we cannot prevent them-let us, too, accept the

inevitable. And then get busy and pick up the pieces.

~~~~

Five Methods I Use To Banish Worry

Professor William Lyon Phelps

[I had the privilege of spending an afternoon with Billy Phelps, of Yale, shortly before

his death. Here are the five methods he used to banish worry-based on the notes I took

during that interview. -DALE CARNEGIE]

1. When I was twenty-four years old, my eyes suddenly gave out. After reading three or

four minutes, my eyes felt as if they were full of needles; and even when I was not

reading, they were so sensitive that I could not face a window. I consulted the best

occultists in New Haven and New York. Nothing seemed to help me. After four o'clock in

the afternoon, I simply sat in a chair in the darkest corner of the room, waiting for

bedtime. I was terrified. I feared that I would have to give up my career as a teacher

and go out West and get a job as a lumberjack. Then a strange thing happened which

shows the miraculous effects of the mind over physical ailments. When my eyes were at

their worst that unhappy winter, I accepted an invitation to address a group of

undergraduates.

The hall was illuminated by huge rings of gas jets suspended from the ceiling. The lights

pained my eyes so intensely that, while sitting on the platform, I was compelled to look

at the floor. Yet during my thirty-minute speech, I felt absolutely no pain, and I could

look directly at these lights without any blinking whatever. Then when the assembly was

over, my eyes pained me again.

I thought then that if I could keep my mind strongly concentrated on something, not for

thirty minutes, but for a week, I might be cured. For clearly it was a case of mental

excitement triumphing over a bodily illness.

I had a similar experience later while crossing the ocean. I had an attack of lumbago so

severe that I could not walk. I suffered extreme pain when I tried to stand up straight.

While in that condition, I was invited to give a lecture on shipboard. As soon as I began

to speak, every trace of pain and stiffness left my body; I stood up straight, moved

about with perfect flexibility, and spoke for an hour. When the lecture was over, I

walked away to my stateroom with ease. For a moment, I thought I was cured. But the

cure was only temporary. The lumbago resumed its attack.

These experiences demonstrated to me the vital importance of one's mental attitude.

They taught me the importance of enjoying life while you may. So I live every day now

as if it were the first day I had ever seen and the last I were going to see. I am excited

about the daily adventure of living, and nobody in a state of excitement will be unduly

troubled with worries. I love my daily work as a teacher. I wrote a book entitled The

Excitement of Teaching. Teaching has always been more than an art or an occupation to

me. It is a passion. I love to teach as a painter loves to paint or a singer loves to sing.

Before I get out of bed in the morning, I think with ardent delight of my first group of

students. I have always felt that one of the chief reasons for success in life is

enthusiasm.

2. I have found that I can crowd worry out of mind by reading an absorbing book. When I

was fifty-nine, I had a prolonged nervous breakdown. During that period I began reading

David Alec Wilson's monumental Life of Carlyle. It had a good deal to do with my

convalescence because I became so absorbed in reading it that I forgot my despondency.

3. At another time when I was terribly depressed, I forced myself to become physically

active almost every hour of the day. I played five or six sets of violent games of tennis

every morning, then took a bath, had lunch, and played eighteen holes of golf every

afternoon. On Friday night I danced until one o'clock in the morning. I am a great

believer in working up a tremendous sweat. I found that depression and worry oozed out

of my system with the sweat.

4. I learned long ago to avoid the folly of hurry, rush, and working under tension. I have

always tried to apply the philosophy of Wilbur Cross. When he was Governor of

Connecticut, he said to me: " Sometimes when I have too many things to do all at once, I

sit down and relax and smoke my pipe for an hour and do nothing. "

5. I have also learned that patience and time have a way of resolving our troubles. When

I am worried about something, I try to see my troubles in their proper perspective. I say

to myself: " Two months from now I shall not be worrying about this bad break, so why

worry about it now? Why not assume now the same attitude that I will have two months

from now? "

To sum up, here are the five ways in which Professor Phelps banished worry:

1. Live with gusto and enthusiasm: " I live every day as if it were the first day I had ever

seen and the last I were going to see. "

2. Read an interesting book: " When I had a prolonged nervous breakdown... I began

reading... the Life of Carlyle... and became so absorbed in reading it that I forgot my

despondency. "

3. Play games: " When I was terribly depressed, I forced myself to become physically

active almost every hour of the day. "

4. Relax while you work: " I long ago learned to avoid the folly of hurry, rush, and

working under tension. "

5. " I try to see my troubles in their proper perspective. I say to myself: 'Two months

from now I shall not be worrying about this bad break, so why worry about it now? Why

not assume now the same attitude that I will have two months from now? '"

~~~~

I Stood Yesterday. I Can Stand Today

Dorothy Dix

I have been through the depths of poverty and sickness. When people ask me what has

kept me going through the troubles that come to all of us, I always reply: " I stood

yesterday. I can stand today. And I will not permit myself to think about what might

happen tomorrow. "

I have known want and struggle and anxiety and despair. I have always had to work

beyond the limit of my strength. As I look back upon my life, I see it as a battlefield

strewn with the wrecks of dead dreams and broken hopes and shattered illusions-a

battle in which I always fought with the odds tremendously against me, and which has

left me scarred and bruised and maimed and old before my time.

Yet I have no pity for myself; no tears to shed over the past and gone sorrows; no envy

for the women who have been spared all I have gone through. For I have lived. They

only existed. I have drank the cup of life down to its very dregs. They have only sipped

the bubbles on top of it. I know things they will never know. I see things to which they

are blind. It is only the women whose eyes have been washed clear with tears who get

the broad vision that makes them little sisters to all the world.

I have learned in the great University of Hard Knocks a philosophy that no woman who

has had an easy life ever acquires. I have learned to live each day as it comes and not to

borrow trouble by dreading the morrow. It is the dark menace of the future that makes

cowards of us. I put that dread from me because experience has taught me that when

the time comes that I so fear, the strength and wisdom to meet it will be given me.

Little annoyances no longer have the power to affect me. After you have seen your

whole edifice of happiness topple and crash in ruins about you, it never matters to you

again that a servant forgets to put the doilies under the finger bowls, or the cook spills

the soup.

I have learned not to expect too much of people, and so I can still get happiness out of

the friend who isn't quite true to me or the acquaintance who gossips. Above all, I have

acquired a sense of humour, because there were so many things over which I had either

to cry or laugh. And when a woman can joke over her troubles instead of having

hysterics, nothing can ever hurt her much again. I do not regret the hardships I have

known, because through them I have touched life at every point I have lived. And it was

worth the price I had to pay.

Dorothy Dix conquered worry by living in " day-tight" compartments.

~~~~

I Did Mot Expect To Live To See The Dawn

J. C. Penney

[On April 14, 1902, a young man with five hundred dollars in cash and a million dollars in

determination opened a drygoods store in Kemmerer, Wyoming-a little mining town of a

thousand people, situated on the old covered-wagon trail laid out by the Lewis and

Clark Expedition. That young man and his wife lived in a half-storey attic above the

store, using a large empty dry-goods box for a table and smaller boxes for chairs. The

young wife wrapped her baby in a blanket and let it sleep under a counter while she

stood beside it, helping her husband wait on customers. Today the largest chain of dry-

goods stores in the world bears that man's name: the J. C. Penney stores-over sixteen

hundred of them covering every state in the Union. I recently had dinner with Mr.

Penney, and he told me about the most dramatic moment of his life. ]

Years ago, I passed through a most trying experience. I was worried and desperate. My

worries were not connected in any way whatever with the J. C. Penney Company. That

business was solid and thriving; but I personally had made some unwise commitments

prior to the crash of 1929. Like many other men, I was blamed for conditions for which I

was in no way responsible. I was so harassed with worries that I couldn't sleep, and

developed an extremely painful ailment known as shingles-a red rash and skin eruptions.

I consulted a physician-a man with whom I had gone to high school as a boy in Hamilton,

Missouri: Dr. Elmer Eggleston, a staff physician at the Kellogg Sanatorium in Battle

Creek, Michigan. Dr. Eggleston put me to bed and warned me that I was a very ill man.

A rigid treatment was prescribed. But nothing helped. I got weaker day by day. I was

broken nervously and physically, filled with despair, unable to see even a ray of hope. I

had nothing to live for. I felt I hadn't a friend left in the world, that even my family had

turned against me. One night, Dr, Eggleston gave me a sedative, but the effect soon

wore off and I awoke with an overwhelming conviction that this was my last night of

life. Getting out of bed, I wrote farewell letters to my wife and to my son, saying that I

did not expect to live to see the dawn.

When I awoke the next morning, I was surprised to find that I was still alive. Going

downstairs, I heard singing in a little chapel where devotional exercises were held each

morning. I can still remember the hymn they were singing: " God will take care of you. "

Going into the chapel, I listened with a weary heart to the singing, the reading of the

Scripture lesson, and the prayer. Suddenly-something happened. I can't explain it. I can

only call it a miracle. I felt as if I had been instantly lifted out of the darkness of a

dungeon into warm, brilliant sunlight. I felt as if I had been transported from hell to

paradise. I felt the power of God as I had never felt it before. I realised then that I

alone was responsible for all my troubles. I knew that God with His love was there to

help me. From that day to this, my life has been free from worry. I am seventy-one

years old, and the most dramatic and glorious twenty minutes of my life were those I

spent in that chapel that morning: " God will take care of you. "

J. C. Penney learned to overcome worry almost instantaneously, because he discovered

the one perfect cure.

~~~~

I Go To The Gym To Punch The Bag Or Take A Hike Outdoors

Colonel Eddie Eagan

New York Attorney, Rhodes Scholar Chairman, New York State Athletic Commission

Former Olympic Light-Heavyweight Champion of the World

When I find myself worrying and mentally going round in endless circles like a camel

turning a water wheel in Egypt, a good physical work-out helps me to chase those

" blues" away. It may be running or a long hike in the country, or it may be a half-hour of

bag punching or squash tennis at the gymnasium. Whichever it is, physical exercise

clears my mental outlook. On a week-end I do a lot of physical sport, such as a run

around the golf course, a game of paddle tennis, or a ski week-end in the Adirondacks.

By my becoming physically tired, my mind gets a rest from legal problems, so that when

I return to them, my mind has a new zest and power.

Quite often in New York, where I work, there is a chance for me to spend an hour at the

Yale Club gym. No man can worry while he is playing squash tennis or skiing. He is too

busy to worry. The large mental mountains of trouble become minute molehills that

new thoughts and acts quickly smooth down.

I find the best antidote for worry is exercise. Use your muscles more and your brain less

when you are worried, and you will be surprised at the result. It works that way with

me-worry goes when exercise begins.

~~~~

I Was " The Worrying Wreck From Virginia Tech. "

Jim Birdsall

Plant Superintendent C. F. Muller Company 180 Baldwin Avenue, Jersey City, New Jersey

Seventeen years ago, when I was in military college at Blacks-burg, Virginia, I was

known as " the worrying wreck from Virginia Tech". I worried so violently that I often

became ill. In fact, I was ill so often that I had a regular bed reserved for me at the

college infirmary at all times. When the nurse saw me coming, she would run and give

me a hypo. I worried about everything. Sometimes I even forgot what I was worrying

about. I worried for fear I would be busted out of college because of my low grades. I

had failed to pass my examinations in physics and other subjects, too. I knew I had to

maintain an average grade of 75-84. I worried about my health, about my excruciating

attacks of acute indigestion, about my insomnia. I worried about financial matters. I felt

badly because I couldn't buy my girl candy or take her to dances as often as I wanted to.

I worried for fear she would marry one of the other cadets. I was in a lather day and

night over a dozen intangible problems.

In desperation, I poured out my troubles to Professor Duke Baird, professor of business

administration at V. P. I.

The fifteen minutes that I spent with Professor Baird did more for my health and

happiness than all the rest of the four years I spent in college. " Jim, " he said, " you ought

to sit down and face the facts. If you devoted half as much time and energy to solving

your problems as you do to worrying about them, you wouldn't have any worries.

Worrying is just a vicious habit you have learned. "

He gave me three rules to break the worry habit:

Rule 1. Find out precisely what is the problem you are worrying about.

Rule 2. Find out the cause of the problem.

Rule 3. Do something constructive at once about solving the problem.

After that interview, I did a bit of constructive planning. Instead of worrying because I

had failed to pass physics, I now asked myself why I had failed. I knew it wasn't because

I was dumb, for I was editor-in-chief of The Virginia Tech Engineer.

I figured that I had failed physics because I had no interest in the subject. I had not

applied myself because I couldn't see how it would help me in my work as an industrial

engineer. But now I changed my attitude. I said to myself: " If the college authorities

demand that I pass my physics examination before I obtain a degree, who am I to

question their wisdom? "

So I enrolled for physics again. This time I passed because instead of wasting my time in

resentment and worrying about how hard it was, I studied diligently.

I solved my financial worries by taking on some additional jobs, such as selling punch at

the college dances, and by borrowing money from my father, which I paid back soon

after graduation.

I solved my love worries by proposing to the girl that I feared might marry another

cadet. She is now Mrs. Jim Birdsall.

As I look back at it now, I can see that my problem was one of confusion, a

disinclination to find the causes of my worry and face them realistically.

Jim Birdsall learned to stop worrying because he ANALYSED his troubles. In fact, he used

the very principles described in the chapter " How to Analyse and Solve Worry Problems. "

~~~~

I Have Lived By This Sentence

Dr. Joseph R. Sizoo

President, New Brunswick Theological Seminary (The oldest theological seminary in the

United States, founded in 1784)

Years ago, in a day of uncertainty and disillusionment, when my whole life seemed to be

overwhelmed by forces beyond my control, one morning quite casually I opened my New

Testament and my eyes fell upon this sentence: " He that sent me is with me-the Father

hath not left me alone. " My life has never been the same since that hour. Everything for