Part Two In A Nutshell 20 страница

Kathleen Halter

Housewife, 1074 Roth, University City 14, Missouri

As a little child, my life was filled with horror. My mother had heart trouble. Day after

day, I saw her faint and fall to the floor. We all feared she was going to die, and I

believed that all little girls whose mothers died were sent to the Central Wesleyan

Orphans' Home, located in the little town of Warrenton, Missouri, where we lived. I

dreaded the thought of going there, and when I was six years old I prayed constantly:

" Dear God, please let my mummy live until I am old enough not to go to the orphans'

home. "

Twenty years later, my brother, Meiner, had a terrible injury and suffered intense pain

until he died two years later. He couldn't feed himself or turn over in bed. To deaden

his pain, I had to give him morphine hypodermics every three hours, day and night. I did

this for two years. I was teaching music at the time at the Central Wesleyan College in

Warrenton, Missouri. When the neighbours heard my brother screaming with pain, they

would telephone me at college and I would leave my music class and rush home to give

my brother another injection of morphine. Every night when I went to bed, I would set

the alarm clock to go off three hours later so I would be sure to get up to attend to my

brother. I remember that on winter nights I would keep a bottle of milk outside the

window, where it would freeze and turn into a kind of ice-cream that I loved to eat.

When the alarm went off, this ice cream outside the window gave me an additional

incentive to get up.

In the midst of all these troubles, I did two things that kept me from indulging in self-

pity and worrying and embittering my life with resentment. First, I kept myself busy

teaching music from twelve to fourteen hours a day, so I had little time to think of my

troubles; and when I was tempted to feel sorry for myself, I kept saying to myself over

and over: " Now, listen, as long as you can walk and feed yourself and are free from

intense pain, you ought to be the happiest person in the world. No matter what

happens, never forget that as long as you live! Never! Never! "

I was determined to do everything in my power to cultivate an unconscious and

continuous attitude of gratefulness for my many blessings. Every morning when I awoke,

I would thank God that conditions were no worse than they were; and I resolved that in

spite of my troubles I would be the happiest person in Warrenton, Missouri. Maybe I

didn't succeed in achieving that goal, but I did succeed in making myself the most

grateful young woman in my town-and probably few of my associates worried less than I

did.

This Missouri music teacher applied two principles described in this book: she kept too

busy to worry, and she counted her blessings. The same technique may be helpful to

you.

~~~~

I Was Acting Like An Hysterical Woman

Cameron Shipp

Magazine Writer

I had been working very happily in the publicity department of the Warner Brothers

studio in California for several years. I was a unit man and feature writer. I wrote

stories for newspapers and magazines about Warner Brother stars.

Suddenly, I was promoted. I was made the assistant publicity director. As a matter of

fact, there was a change of administrative policy, and I was given an impressive title:

Administrative Assistant.

This gave me an enormous office with a private refrigerator, two secretaries, and

complete charge of a staff of seventy-five writers, exploiters, and radio men. I was

enormously impressed. I went straight out and bought a new suit. I tried to speak with

dignity. I set up filing systems, made decisions with authority, and ate quick lunches.

I was convinced that the whole public-relations policy of Warner Brothers had

descended upon my shoulders. I perceived that the lives, both private and public, of

such renowned persons as Bette Davis, Olivia De Havilland, James Cagney, Edward G.

Robinson, Errol Flynn, Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan, Alexis Smith, and Alan Hale

were entirely in my hands.

In less than a month I became aware that I had stomach ulcers. Probably cancer.

My chief war activity at that time was chairman of the War Activities Committee of the

Screen Publicists Guild. I liked to do this work, liked to meet my friends at guild

meetings. But these gatherings became matters of dread. After every meeting, I was

violently ill. Often I had to stop my car on the way home, pulling myself together before

I could drive on. There seemed to be so much to do, so little time in which to do it. It

was all vital. And I was woefully inadequate.

I am being perfectly truthful-this was the most painful illness of my entire life. There

was always a tight fist in my vitals. I lost weight. I could not sleep. The pain was

constant.

So I went to see a renowned expert in internal medicine. An advertising man

recommended him. He said this physician had many clients who were advertising men.

This physician spoke only briefly, just enough for me to tell him where I hurt and what I

did for a living. He seemed more interested in my job than in my ailments, but I was

soon reassured: for two weeks, daily, he gave me every known test. I was probed,

explored, X-rayed, and fluoroscoped. Finally, I was instructed to call on him and hear

the verdict.

" Mr. Shipp, " he said, leaning back and offering me a cigarette, " we have been through

these exhaustive tests. They were absolutely necessary, although I knew of course after

my first quick examination that you did not have stomach ulcers.

" But I knew, because you are the kind of man you are and because you do the kind of

work you do, that you would not believe me unless I showed you. Let me show you. "

So he showed me the charts and the X-rays and explained them. He showed me I had no

ulcers.

" Now, " said the doctor, " this costs you a good deal of money, but it is worth it to you.

Here is the prescription: don't worry.

" Now" -he stopped me as I started to expostulate-; " now, I realise that you can't follow

the prescription immediately, so I'll give you a crutch. Here are some pills. They contain

belladonna. Take as many as you like. When you use these up, come back and I'll give

you more. They won't hurt you. But they will always relax you.

" But remember: you don't need them. All you have to do is quit worrying.

" If you do start worrying again, you'll have to come back here and I'll charge you a heavy

fee again. How about it? "

I wish I could report that the lesson took effect that day and that I quit worrying

immediately. I didn't. I took the pills for several weeks, whenever I felt a worry coming

on. They worked. I felt better at once.

But I felt silly taking these pills. I am a big man physically. I am almost as tall as Abe

Lincoln was-and I weigh almost two hundred pounds. Yet here I was taking little white

pills to relax myself. I was acting like an hysterical woman. When my friends asked me

why I was taking pills, I was ashamed to tell the truth. Gradually I began to laugh at

myself. I said: " See here, Cameron Shipp, you are acting like a fool. You are taking

yourself and your little activities much, much too seriously. Bette Da vis and James

Cagney and Edward G. Robinson were world-famous before you started to handle their

publicity; and if you dropped dead tonight, Warner Brothers and their stars would

manage to get along without you. Look at Eisenhower, General Marshall, MacArthur,

Jimmy Doolittle and Admiral King-they are running the war without taking pills. And yet

you can't serve as chairman of the War Activities Committee of the Screen Publicists

Guild without taking little white pills to keep your stomach from twisting and turning

like a Kansas whirlwind. "

I began to take pride in getting along without the pills. A little while later, I threw the

pills down the drain and got home each night in time to take a little nap before dinner

and gradually began to lead a normal life. I have never been back to see that physician.

But I owe him much, much more than what seemed like a stiff fee at the time. He

taught me to laugh at myself. But I think the really skilful thing he did was to refrain

from laughing at me, and to refrain from telling me I had nothing to worry about. He

took me seriously. He saved my face. He gave me an out in a small box. But he knew

then, as well as I know now, that the cure wasn't in those silly little pills-the cure was in

a change in my mental attitude.

The moral of this story is that many a man who is now taking pills would do better to

read Chapter 7, and relax.

~~~~

I Learned To Stop Worrying By Watching My Wife Wash Dishes

Reverend William Wood

204 Hurlbert Street, Charlevoix, Michigan

A few years ago, I was suffering intensely from pains in my stomach. I would awaken

two or three times each night, unable to sleep because of these terrific pains. I had

watched my father die from cancer of the stomach, and I feared that I too had a

stomach cancer-or, at least, stomach ulcers. So I went to Byrne's Clinic at Petosky,

Michigan, for an examination. Dr. Lilga, a stomach specialist, examined me with a

fluoroscope and took an X-ray of my stomach. He gave me medicine to make me sleep

and assured me that I had no stomach ulcers or cancer. My stomach pains, he said, were

caused by emotional strains. Since I am a minister, one of his first questions was: " Do

you have an old crank on your church board? "

He told me what I already knew; I was trying to do too much. In addition to my

preaching every Sunday and carrying the burdens of the various activities of the church,

I was also chairman of the Red Cross, president of the Kiwanis. I also conducted two or

three funerals each week and a number of other activities.

I was working under constant pressure. I could never relax. I was always tense, hurried,

and high-strung. I got to the point where I worried about everything. I was living in a

constant dither. I was in such pain that I gladly acted on Dr. Lilga's advice. I took

Monday off each week, and began eliminating various responsibilities and activities.

One day while cleaning out my desk, I got an idea that proved to be immensely helpful.

I was looking over an accumulation of old notes on sermons and other memos on matters

that were now past and gone. I crumpled them up one by one and tossed them into the

wastebasket. Suddenly I stopped and said to myself: " Bill, why don't you do the same

thing with your worries that you are doing with these notes? Why don't you crumple up

your worries about yesterday's problems and toss them into the wastebasket? " That one

idea gave me immediate inspiration-gave me the feeling of a weight being lifted from

my shoulders. From that day to this, I have made it a rule to throw into the wastebasket

all the problems that I can no longer do anything about.

Then, one day while wiping the dishes as my wife washed them, I got another idea. My

wife was singing as she washed the dishes, and I said to myself: " Look, Bill, how happy

your wife is. We have been married eighteen years, and she has been washing dishes all

that time. Suppose when we got married she had looked ahead and seen all the dishes

she would have to wash during those eighteen years that stretched ahead. That pile of

dirty dishes would be bigger than a barn. The very thought of it would have appalled

any woman. "

Then I said to myself: " The reason my wife doesn't mind washing the dishes is because

she washes only one day's dishes at a time. " I saw what my trouble was. I was trying to

wash today's dishes, yesterday's dishes and dishes that weren't even dirty yet.

I saw how foolishly I was acting. I was standing in the pulpit, Sunday mornings, telling

other people how to live, yet, I myself was leading a tense, worried, hurried existence. I

felt ashamed of myself.

Worries don't bother me any more now. No more stomach pains. No more insomnia. I

now crumple up yesterday's anxieties and toss them into the wastebasket, and I have

ceased trying to wash tomorrow's dirty dishes today.

Do you remember a statement quoted earlier in this book? " The load of tomorrow,

added to that of yesterday, carried today, makes the strongest falter. " ... Why even try

it?

~~~~

I Found The Answer-keep Busy!

Del Hughes

Public Accountant, 607 South Euclid Avenue, Bay City, Michigan

In 1943 I landed in a. veterans' hospital in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with three broken

ribs and a punctured lung. This had happened during a practice Marine amphibious

landing off the Hawaiian Islands. I was getting ready to jump off the barge, on to the

beach, when a big breaker swept in, lifted the barge, and threw me off balance and

smashed me on the sands. I fell with such force that one of my broken ribs punctured

my right lung.

After spending three months in the hospital, I got the biggest shock of my life. The

doctors told me that I showed absolutely no improvement. After some serious thinking, I

figured that worry was preventing me from getting well. I had been used to a very

active life, and during these three months I had been flat on my back twenty-four hours

a day with nothing to do but think. The more I thought, the more I worried: worried

about whether I would ever be able to take my place in the world. I worried about

whether I would remain a cripple the rest of my life, and about whether I would ever be

able to get married and live a normal life.

I urged my doctor to move me up to the next ward, which was called the " Country Club"

because the patients were allowed to do almost anything they cared to do.

In this " Country Club" ward, I became interested in contract bridge. I spent six weeks

learning the game, playing bridge with the other fellows, and reading Culbertson's books

on bridge. After six weeks, I was playing nearly every evening for the rest of my stay in

the hospital. I also became interested in painting with oils, and I studied this art under

an instructor every afternoon from three to five. Some of my paintings were so good

that you could almost tell what they were! I also tried my hand at soap and wood

carving, and read a number of books on the subject and found it fascinating. I kept

myself so busy that I had no time to worry about my physical condition. I even found

time to read books on psychology given to me by the Red Cross. At the end of three

months, the entire medical staff came to me and congratulated me on " making an

amazing improvement". Those were the sweetest words I had ever heard since the days I

was born. I wanted to shout with joy.

The point I am trying to make is this: when I had nothing to do but lie on the flat of my

back and worry about my future, I made no improvement whatever. I was poisoning my

body with worry. Even the broken ribs couldn't heal. But as soon as I got my mind off

myself by playing contract bridge, painting oil pictures, and carving wood, the doctors

declared I made " an amazing improvement".

I am now leading a normal healthy life, and my lungs are as good as yours.

Remember what George Bernard Shaw said? " The secret of being miserable is to have

the leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. " Keep active, keep busy!

~~~~

Time Solves A Lot Of Things

Louis T. Montant, Jr.

Sales and Market Analyst 114 West 64th Street, New York, New York

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 realise 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.

Times 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

Joseph L. Ryan

Supervisor, Foreign Division, Royal Typewriter Company 51 Judson Place, Rockville

Centre, Long Island, New York

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

Ordway Tead

Chairman of the Board of Higher Education New York, New York

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 full-time 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?

~~~~

If I Had Mot Stopped Worrying, I Would Have Been In My Grave Long Ago

Connie Mack

I have been in professional 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:

1. I saw how futile it was. I saw it was getting me nowhere and was threatening to

wreck my career.

2. I saw it was going to ruin my health.

3. 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.

4. 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 criticising the players

and from arguing with them bitterly over their defeats. I found this only increased my

worries. Criticising 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