如何停止焦虑开始新生活-11

his Autobiography that "nearly all the worries and unhappiness" of the Indians "camefrom their imagination, and not from reality."As I look back across the decades, I can see that that is where most of my worries camefrom also. Jim Grant told me that that had been his experience, too. He owns theJames A. Grant Distributing Company, 204 Franklin Street, New York City. He ordersfrom ten to fifteen car-loads of Florida oranges and grapefruit at a time. He told methat he used to torture himself with such thoughts as: What if there's a train wreck?What if my fruit is strewn all over the countryside? What if a bridge collapses as my carsare going across it? Of course, the fruit was insured; but he feared that if he didn'tdeliver his fruit on time, he might risk the loss of his market. He worried so much thathe feared he had stomach ulcers and went to a doctor. The doctor told him there wasnothing wrong with him except jumpy nerves. "I saw the light then," he said, "and beganto ask myself questions. I said to myself: 'Look here, Jim Grant, how many fruit carshave you handled over the years?' The answer was: 'About twenty-five thousand.' Then Iasked myself: 'How many of those cars were ever wrecked?' The answer was: 'Oh-maybefive.' Then I said to myself: 'Only five-out of twenty-five thousand? Do you know whatthat means? A ratio of five thousand to one! In other words, by the law of averages,based on experience, the chances are five thousand to one against one of your cars everbeing wrecked. So what are you worried about?'"Then I said to myself: 'Well, a bridge may collapse!' Then I asked myself: 'How manycars have you actually lost from a bridge collapsing?' The answer was-'None.' Then I saidto myself: 'Aren't you a fool to be worrying yourself into stomach ulcers over a bridgewhich has never yet collapsed, and over a railroad wreck when the chances are fivethousand to one against it!'"When I looked at it that way," Jim Grant told me, "I felt pretty silly. I decided then andthere to let the law of averages do the worrying for me-and I have not been troubledwith my 'stomach ulcer' since!"When Al Smith was Governor of New York, I heard him answer the attacks of his politicalenemies by saying over and over: "Let's examine the record ... let's examine the record."Then he proceeded to give the facts. The next time you and I are worrying about whatmay happen, let's take a tip from wise old Al Smith: let's examine the record and seewhat 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 toone 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 999thSignal Service Company, and we had just 'dug in' in Normandy. As I looked around at thatslit trench-just a rectangular hole in the ground-I said to myself: 'This looks just like agrave.' When I lay down and tried to sleep in it, it felt like a grave. I couldn't help sayingto myself: 'Maybe this is my grave.' When the German bombers began coming over at 11p.m., and the bombs started falling, I was scared stiff. For the first two or three nights Icouldn't sleep at all. By the fourth or fifth night, I was almost a nervous wreck. I knewthat if I didn't do something, I would go stark crazy. So I reminded myself that fivenights had passed, and I was still alive; and so was every man in our outfit. Only two hadbeen injured, and they had been hurt, not by German bombs, but by falling flak, fromour 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 thoughtof the vast area over which my unit was spread. I told myself that the only way I couldbe killed in that deep, narrow slit trench was by a direct hit; and I figured out that thechance of a direct hit on me was not one in ten thousand. After a couple of nights oflooking 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 moraleof their men. One ex-sailor told me that when he and his shipmates were assigned tohigh-octane tankers, they were worried stiff. They all believed that if a tanker loadedwith high-octane gasoline was hit by a torpedo, it exploded and blew everybody tokingdom come.But the U.S. Navy knew otherwise; so the Navy issued exact figures, showing that out ofone 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 alsomeant casualties were exceedingly small. Did this help morale? "This knowledge of thelaw 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 wehad a chance; and that, by the law of averages, we probably wouldn't be killed." Tobreak 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 thelaw of averages, that this event I am worrying about will ever occur?"~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Chapter 9 -Co-Operate With The InevitableWhen 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 restedmy feet on a window-sill for a moment-and then jumped. I had a ring on my leftforefinger; 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, Inever worried about it for one split second. What would have been the use? ... Iaccepted the inevitable.Now I often go for a month at a time without even thinking about the fact that I haveonly 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 thedowntown office buildings in New York. I noticed that his left hand had been cut off atthe wrist. I asked him if the loss of that hand bothered him. He said: "Oh, no, I hardlyever think about it. I am not married; and the only time I ever think about it is when Itry to thread a needle."It is astonishing how quickly we can accept almost any situation-if we have to-andadjust ourselves to it and forget about it.I often think of an inscription on the ruins of a fifteenth-century cathedral inAmsterdam, 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 unpleasantsituations that are so. They cannot be otherwise. We have our choice. We can eitheraccept them as inevitable and adjust ourselves to them, or we can ruin our lives withrebellion and maybe end up with a nervous breakdown.Here is a bit of sage advice from one of my favourite philosophers, William James. "Bewilling to have it so," he said. "Acceptance of what has happened is the first step toovercoming the consequence of any misfortune." Elizabeth Connley, of 2840 NE 49thAvenue, Portland, Oregon, had to find that out the hard way. Here is a letter that shewrote me recently: "On the very day that America was celebrating the victory of ourarmed forces in North Africa," the letter says, "I received a telegram from the WarDepartment: my nephew-the person I loved most-was missing in action. A short timelater, 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 tome. I had a job I loved. I had helped to raise this nephew. He represented to me all thatwas fine and good in young manhood. I had felt that all the bread I had cast upon thewaters was coming back to me as cake! ... Then came this telegram. My whole worldcollapsed. I felt there was nothing left to live for. I neglected my work; neglected myfriends. I let everything go. I was bitter and resentful. Why did my loving nephew haveto 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 hadforgotten-a letter from this nephew who had been killed, a letter he had written to mewhen 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 makeyou do that. I shall never forget the beautiful truths you taught me. Wherever I am, orhow far apart we may be, I shall always remember that you taught me to smile, and totake 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 tomyself: 'It is done. I can't change it. But I can and will carry on as he wished me to do.' Ithrew all my mind and strength into my work. I wrote letters to soldiers-to otherpeople's boys. I joined an adult-education class at night-seeking out new interests andmaking new friends. I can hardly believe the change that has come over me. I haveceased mourning over the past that is for ever gone. I am living each day now with joyjustas my nephew would have wanted me to do. I have made peace with life. I haveaccepted my fate. I am now living a fuller and more complete life than I had everknown."Elizabeth Connley, out in Portland, Oregon, learned what all of us will have to learnsooner or later: namely, that we must accept and co-operate with the inevitable. "It isso. It cannot be otherwise." That is not an easy lesson to learn. Even kings on theirthrones have to keep reminding themselves of it. The late George V had these framedwords hanging on the wall of his library in Buckingham Palace: "Teach me neither to cryfor the moon nor over spilt milk." The same thought is expressed by Schopenhauer inthis way: "A good supply of resignation is of the first importance in providing for thejourney of life."Obviously, circumstances alone do not make us happy or unhappy. It is the way we reactto circumstances that determines our feelings. Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven iswithin 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 maynot think we can, but we have surprisingly strong inner resources that will see usthrough 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 uponme except one thing: blindness. I could never endure that."Then one day, when he was along in his sixties, Tarkington glanced down at the carpeton the floor. The colours were blurred. He couldn't see the pattern. He went to aspecialist. 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! Thisis the end of my life"? No, to his amazement, he felt quite gay. He even called upon hishumour. Floating "specks" annoyed him; they would swim across his eyes and cut off hisvision. 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 totalblindness closed in, Tarkington said: "I found I could take the loss of my eyesight, just asa man can take anything else. If I lost all five of my senses, I know I could live on insidemy mind. For it is in the mind we see, and in the mind we live, whether we know it ornot."In the hope of restoring his eyesight, Tarkington had to go through more than twelveoperations within one year. With local anaesthetic! Did he rail against this? He knew ithad to be done. He knew he couldn't escape it, so the only way to lessen his sufferingwas to take it with grace. He refused a private room at the hospital and went into award, where he could be with other people who had troubles, too. He tried to cheerthem up. And when he had to submit to repeated operations-fully conscious of what wasbeing done to his eyes-he tried to remember how fortunate he was. "How wonderful!" hesaid. "How wonderful, that science now has the skill to operate on anything so delicateas the human eye!"The average man would have been a nervous wreck if he had had to endure more thantwelve operations and blindness. Yet Tarkington said: "I would not exchange thisexperience for a happier one." It taught him acceptance. It taught him that nothing lifecould bring him was beyond his strength to endure. It taught him, as John Miltondiscovered, that "It is not miserable to be blind, it is only miserable not to be able toendure blindness."Margaret Fuller, the famous New England feminist, once offered as her credo: "I acceptthe Universe!"When grouchy old Thomas Carlyle heard that in England, he snorted: "By gad, she'dbetter!" 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 wewill change ourselves. I know. I have tried it.I once refused to accept an inevitable situation with which I was confronted. I playedthe fool and railed against it, and rebelled. I turned my nights into hells of insomnia. Ibrought upon myself everything I didn't want. Finally, after a year of self-torture, I hadto 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 treesand animals do.I spent twelve years working with cattle; yet I never saw a Jersey cow running atemperature because the pasture was burning up from a lack of rain or because of sleetand 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 nervousbreakdowns or stomach ulcers; and they never go insane.Am I advocating that we simply bow down to all the adversities that come our way? Notby a long shot! That is mere fatalism. As long as there is a chance that we can save asituation, let's fight! But when common sense tells us that we are up against somethingthat is so-and cannot be otherwise-then, in the name of our sanity, let's not look beforeand after and pine for what is not.The late Dean Hawkes of Columbia University told me that he had taken a Mother Gooserhyme 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 livessingularly free from worry. If they hadn't done that, they would have cracked under thestrain. 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'tworry if I lost every cent I have because I don't see what is to be gained by worrying. Ido 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 letthem handle themselves."When I asked K.T. Keller, president of the Chrysler Corporation, how he kept fromworrying, 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 manliving can possibly figure out what is going to happen in the future. There are so manyforces that will affect that future! Nobody can tell what prompts those forces-orunderstand them. So why worry about them?" K. T. Keller would be embarrassed if youtold him he is a philosopher. He is just a good business man, yet he has stumbled on thesame philosophy that Epictetus taught in Rome nineteen centuries ago. "There is onlyone way to happiness," Epictetus taught the Romans, "and that is to cease worryingabout things which are beyond the power of our will."Sarah Bernhardt, the "divine Sarah" was an illustrious example of a woman who knewhow to co-operate with the inevitable. For half a century, she had been the reigningqueen of the theatre on four continents-the best-loved actress on earth. Then when shewas seventy-one and broke-she had lost all her money-her physician, Professor Pozzi ofParis, told her he would have to amputate her leg. While crossing the Atlantic, she hadfallen on deck during a storm, and injured her leg severely. Phlebitis developed. Her legshrank. 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 bedone. 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. Shewaved 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. Someoneasked her if she were doing this to cheer herself up. She said: "No, to cheer up thedoctors and nurses. It will be a strain on them."After recovering from the operation, Sarah Bernhardt went on touring the world andenchanting audiences for another seven years."When we stop fighting the inevitable," said Elsie Mac-Cormick in a Reader's Digestarticle, "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 sametime, enough left over to create a new life. Choose one or the other. You can eitherbend 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. Atfirst, they grew with astonishing rapidity. Then a sleet-storm encrusted each twig andbranch with a heavy coating of ice. Instead of bowing gracefully to their burden, thesetrees proudly resisted and broke and split under the load-and had to be destroyed. Theyhadn't learned the wisdom of the forests of the north. I have travelled hundreds of milesthrough the evergreen forests of Canada, yet I have never seen a spruce or a pinebroken by sleet or ice. These evergreen forests know how to bend, how to bow downtheir branches, how to co-operate with the inevitable.The masters of jujitsu teach their pupils to "bend like the willow; don't resist like theoak."Why do you think your automobile tyres stand up on the road and take so muchpunishment? At first, the manufacturers tried to make a tyre that would resist theshocks of the road. It was soon cut to ribbons. Then they made a tyre that would absorbthe shocks of the road. That tyre could "take it". You and I will last longer, and enjoysmoother 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 absorbingthem? What will happen if we refuse to "bend like the willow" and insist on resisting likethe oak? The answer is easy. We will set up a series of inner conflicts. We will beworried, tense, strained, and neurotic.If we go still further and reject the harsh world of reality and retreat into a dreamworld of our own making, we will then be insane.During the war, millions of frightened soldiers had either to accept the inevitable orbreak under the strain. To illustrate, let's take the case of William H. Casselius, 712676th Street, Glendale, New York. Here is a prize-winning talk he gave before one of myadult-education classes in New York:"Shortly after I joined the Coast Guard, I was assigned to one of the hottest spots on thisside of the Atlantic. I was made a supervisor of explosives. Imagine it. Me! A biscuitsalesman becoming a supervisor of explosives! The very thought of finding yourselfstanding on top of thousands of tons of T.N.T. is enough to chill the marrow in a crackersalesman's bones. I was given only two days of instruction; and what I learned filled mewith even more terror. I'll never forget my first assignment. On a dark, cold, foggy day, Iwas 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 fivelongshoremen. They had strong backs, but they knew nothing whatever aboutexplosives. And they were loading blockbusters, each one of which contained a ton ofT.N.T.-enough explosive to blow that old ship to kingdom come. These blockbusterswere being lowered by two cables. I kept saying to myself: Suppose one of those cablesslipped-or broke! Oh, boy! Was I scared! I trembled. My mouth was dry. My kneessagged. My heart pounded. But I couldn't run away. That would be desertion. I would bedisgraced-my parents would be disgraced-and I might be shot for desertion. I couldn'trun. I had to stay. I kept looking at the careless way those longshoremen were handlingthose blockbusters. The ship might blow up any minute. After an hour or more of thisspine-chilling terror, I began to use a little common sense. I gave myself a good talkingto. 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. Youcan't expect to live for ever! You've got to do this job-or be shot. So you might as welllike it.""I talked to myself like that for hours; and I began to feel at ease. Finally, I overcamemy 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 Ican't possibly change, I shrug my shoulders and say: 'Forget it.' I find that it works-evenfor a biscuit salesman." Hooray! Let's give three cheers and one cheer more for thebiscuit salesman of the Pinafore.Outside the crucifixion of Jesus, the most famous death scene in all history was thedeath of Socrates. Ten thousand centuries from now, men will still be reading andcherishing Plato's immortal description of it-one of the most moving and beautifulpassages in all literature. Certain men of Athens-jealous and envious of old barefootedSocrates-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 tobear lightly what needs must be." Socrates did. He faced death with a calmness andresignation that touched the hem of divinity."Try to bear lightly what needs must be." Those words were spoken 399 years beforeChrist was born; but this worrying old world needs those words today more than everbefore: "Try to bear lightly what needs must be."During the past eight years, I have been reading practically every book and magazinearticle I could find that dealt even remotely with banishing worry. ... Would you like toknow what is the best single bit of advice about worry that I have ever discovered in allthat reading? Well, here it is-summed up in twenty-seven words-words that you and Iought to paste on our bathroom mirrors, so that each time we wash our faces we couldalso 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 changethe 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 WorriesWOULD you like to know how to make money on the Stock Exchange? Well, so would a