如何停止焦虑开始新生活-14

1. Just for today I will be happy. This assumes that what Abraham Lincoln said is true,that "most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." Happiness isfrom within; it is not a matter of externals.2. Just for today I will try to adjust myself to what is, and not try to adjust everythingto my own desires. I will take my family, my business, and my luck as they come and fitmyself to them.3. Just for today I will take care of my body. I will exercise it, care for it, nourish it, notabuse it nor neglect it, so that it will be a perfect machine for my bidding.4. Just for today I will try to strengthen my mind. I will learn something useful. I willnot be a mental loafer. I will read something that requires effort, thought andconcentration.5. Just for today I will exercise my soul in three ways: I will do somebody a good turnand not get found out. I will do at least two things I don't want to do, as William Jamessuggests, just for exercise.6. Just for today I will be agreeable. I will look as well as I can, dress as becomingly aspossible, talk low, act courteously, be liberal with praise, criticise not at all, nor findfault with anything and not try to regulate nor improve anyone.7. Just for today I will try to live through this day only, not to tackle my whole lifeproblem at once. I can do things for twelve hours that would appall me if I had to keepthem up for a lifetime.8. Just for today I will have a programme. I will write down what I expect to do everyhour. I may not follow it exactly, but I will have it. It will eliminate two pests, hurry andindecision.9. Just for today I will have a quiet half-hour all by myself and relax. In this half-hoursometimes I will think of God, so as to get a little more perspective into my life.10. Just for today I will be unafraid, especially I will not be afraid to be happy, to enjoywhat is beautiful, to love, and to believe that those I love, love me.If we want to develop a mental attitude that will bring us peace and happiness, here isRule 1:Think and act cheerfully, and you will feel cheerful.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Chapter 13 -The High Cost Of Getting EvenOne night, years ago, as I was travelling through Yellowstone Park, I sat with othertourists on bleachers facing a dense growth of pine and spruce. Presently the animalwhich we had been waiting to see, the terror of the forests, the grizzly bear, strode outinto the glare of the lights and began devouring the garbage that had been dumpedthere from the kitchen of one of the park hotels. A forest ranger, Major Martindale, saton a horse and talked to the excited tourists about bears. He told us that the grizzlybear can whip any other animal in the Western world, with the possible exception of thebuffalo and the Kadiak bear; yet I noticed that night that there was one animal, andonly one, that the grizzly permitted to come out of the forest and eat with him underthe glare of the lights: a skunk. The grizzly knew that he could liquidate a skunk withone swipe of his mighty paw. Why didn't he do it? Because he had found from experiencethat it didn't pay.I found that out, too. As a farm boy, I trapped four-legged skunks along the hedgerowsin Missouri; and, as a man, I encountered a few two-legged skunks on the sidewalks ofNew York. I have found from sad experience that it doesn't pay to stir up either variety.When we hate our enemies, we are giving them power over us: power over our sleep,our appetites, our blood pressure, our health, and our happiness. Our enemies woulddance with joy if only they knew how they were worrying us, lacerating us and gettingeven with us! Our hate is not hurting them, but our hate is turning our own days andnights into a hellish turmoil.Who do you suppose said this: "If selfish people try to take advantage of you, cross themoff your list, but don't try to get even. When you try to get even, you hurt yourself morethan you hurt the other fellow"? ... Those words sound as if they might have beenuttered by some starry-eyed idealist. But they weren't. Those words appeared in abulletin issued by the Police Department of Milwaukee.How will trying to get even hurt you? In many ways. According to Life magazine, it mayeven wreck your health. "The chief personality characteristic of persons withhypertension [high blood pressure] is resentment," said Life. "When resentment ischronic, chronic hypertension and heart trouble follow."So you see that when Jesus said: "Love your enemies", He was not only preaching soundethics. He was also preaching twentieth-century medicine. When He said: "Forgiveseventy time seven", Jesus was telling you and me how to keep from having high bloodpressure, heart trouble, stomach ulcers, and many other ailments.A friend of mine recently had a serious heart attack. Her physician put her to bed andordered her to refuse to get angry about anything, no matter what happened. Physiciansknow that if you have a weak heart, a fit of anger can kill you. Did I say can kill you? Afit of anger did kill a restaurant owner in Spokane, Washington, a few years ago. I havein front of me now a letter from Jerry Swartout, chief of the Police Department,Spokane, Washington, saying: "A few years ago, William Falkaber, a man of sixty-eightwho owned a caf6 here in Spokane, killed himself by flying into a rage because his cookinsisted on drinking coffee out of his saucer. The cafe owner was so indignant that hegrabbed a revolver and started to chase the cook and fell dead from heart failure-withhis hand still gripping the gun. The coroner's report declared that anger had caused theheart failure."When Jesus said: "Love your enemies", He was also telling us how to improve our looks. Iknow women-and so do you-whose faces have been wrinkled and hardened by hate anddisfigured by resentment. All the beauty treatments in Christendom won't improve theirlooks half so much as would a heart full of forgiveness, tenderness, and love.Hatred destroys our ability to enjoy even our food. The Bible puts it this way "Better is adinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith."Wouldn't our enemies rub their hands with glee if they knew that our hate for them wasexhausting us, making us tired and nervous, ruining our looks, giving us heart trouble,and probably shortening our lives?Even if we can't love our enemies, let's at least love ourselves. Let's love ourselves somuch that we won't permit our enemies to control our happiness, our health and ourlooks. As Shakespeare put it:Heat not a furnace for your foe so hotThat it do singe yourself.When Jesus said that we should forgive our enemies "seventy times seven", He was alsopreaching sound business. For example, I have before me as I write a letter I receivedfrom George Rona, Fradegata'n 24, Uppsala, Sweden. For years, George Rona was anattorney in Vienna; but during the Second World War, he fled to Sweden. He had nomoney, needed work badly. Since he could speak and write several languages, he hopedto get a position as correspondent for some firm engaged in importing or exporting.Most of the firms replied that they had no need of such services because of the war, butthey would keep his name on file ... and so on. One man, however, wrote George Ronaa letter saying: "What you imagine about my business is not true. You are both wrongand foolish. I do not need any correspondent. Even if I did need one, I wouldn't hire youbecause you can't even write good Swedish. Your letter is full of mistakes."When George Rona read that letter, he was as mad as Donald Duck. What did this Swedemean by telling him he couldn't write the language! Why, the letter that this Swedehimself had written was full of mistakes! So George Rona wrote a letter that wascalculated to burn this man up. Then he paused. He said to himself: "Wait a minute,now. How do I know this man isn't right? I have studied Swedish, but it's not my nativelanguage, so maybe I do make mistakes I don't know anything about. If I do, then Icertainly have to study harder if I ever hope to get a job. This man has possibly done mea favour, even though he didn't mean to. The mere fact that he expressed himself indisagreeable terms doesn't alter my debt to him. Therefore, I am going to write him andthank him for what he has done."So George Rona tore up the scorching letter he had already written, and wrote anotherthat said: "It was kind of you to go to the trouble of writing to me, especially when youdo not need a correspondent. I am sorry I was mistaken about your firm. The reasonthat I wrote you was that I made inquiry and your name was given me as a leader in yourfield. I did not know I had made grammatical errors in my letter. I am sorry andashamed of myself. I will now apply myself more diligently to the study of the Swedishlanguage and try to correct my mistakes. I want to thank you for helping me get startedon the road to self-improvement."Within a few days, George Rona got a letter from this man, asking Rona to come to seehim. Rona went-and got a job. George Rona discovered for himself that "a soft answerturneth away wrath".We may not be saintly enough to love our enemies, but, for the sake of our own healthand happiness, let's at least forgive them and forget them. That is the smart thing todo. "To be wronged or robbed," said Confucius, "is nothing unless you continue toremember it." I once asked General Eisenhower's son, John, if his father ever nourishedresentments. "No," he replied, "Dad never wastes a minute thinking about people hedoesn't like."There is an old saying that a man is a fool who can't be angry, but a man is wise whowon't be angry.That was the policy of William J. Gaynor, former Mayor of New York. Bitterly denouncedby the yellow press, he was shot by a maniac and almost killed. As he lay in thehospital, fighting for his life, he said: "Every night, I forgive everything and everybody."Is that too idealistic? Too much sweetness and light? If so, let's turn for counsel to thegreat German philosopher, Schopenhauer, author of Studies in Pessimism.He regarded life as a futile and painful adventure. Gloom dripped from him as hewalked; yet out of the depths of his despair, Schopenhauer cried: "If possible, noanimosity should be felt for anyone."I once asked Bernard Baruch-the man who was the trusted adviser to six Presidents:Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, Roosevelt, and Truman-whether he was everdisturbed by the attacks of his enemies. "No man can humiliate me or disturb me," hereplied. "I won't let him."No one can humiliate or disturb you and me, either-unless we let him.But words can never hurt me."Throughout the ages mankind has burned its candles before those Christlike individualswho bore no malice against their enemies. I have often stood in the Jasper NationalPark, in Canada, and gazed upon one of the most beautiful mountains in the Westernworld-a mountain named in honour of Edith Cavell, the British nurse who went to herdeath like a saint before a German firing squad on October 12, 1915. Her crime? She hadhidden and fed and nursed wounded French and English soldiers in her Belgian home,and had helped them escape into Holland. As the English chaplain entered her cell inthe military prison in Brussels that October morning, to prepare her for death, EdithCavell uttered two sentences that have been preserved in bronze and granite: "I realisethat patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness toward anyone." Fouryears later, her body was removed to England and memorial services were held inWestminster Abbey. Today, a granite statue stands opposite the National PortraitGallery in London-a statue of one of England's immortals. "I realise that patriotism is notenough. I must have no hatred or bitterness toward anyone."One sure way to forgive and forget our enemies is to become absorbed in some causeinfinitely bigger than ourselves. Then the insults and the enmities we encounter won'tmatter because we will be oblivious of everything but our cause. As an example, let'stake an intensely dramatic event that was about to take place in the pine woods ofMississippi back in 1918. A lynching! Laurence Jones, a coloured teacher and preacher,was about to be lynched. A few years ago, I visited the school that Laurence Jonesfounded-the Piney Woods Country School-and I spoke before the student body. Thatschool is nationally known today, but the incident I am going to relate occurred longbefore that. It occurred back in the highly emotional days of the First World War. Arumour had spread through central Mississippi that the Germans were arousing theNegroes and inciting them to rebellion. Laurence Jones, the man who was about to belynched, was, as I have already said, a Negro himself and was accused of helping toarouse his race to insurrection. A group of white men-pausing outside the church-hadheard Laurence Jones shouting to his congregation: "Life is a battle in which every Negromust gird on his armour and fight to survive and succeed.""Fight!" "Armour!" Enough! Galloping off into the night, these excited young menrecruited a mob, returned to the church, put a rope round the preacher, dragged himfor a mile up the road, stood him on a heap of faggots, lighted matches, and were readyto hang him and burn him at the same time, when someone shouted: "Let's make theblankety-blank-blank talk before he burns. Speech! Speech!" Laurence Jones, standingon the faggots, spoke with a rope around his neck, spoke for his life and his cause. Hehad been graduated from the University of Iowa in 1907. His sterling character, hisscholarship and his musical ability had made him popular with both the students and thefaculty. Upon graduation, he had turned down the offer of a hotel man to set him up inbusiness, and had turned down the offer of a wealthy man to finance his musicaleducation. Why? Because he was on fire with a vision. Reading the story of Booker T.Washington's life, he had been inspired to devote his own life to educating the povertystricken,illiterate members of his race. So he went to the most backward belt he couldfind in the South-a spot twenty-five miles south of Jackson, Mississippi. Pawning hiswatch for $1.65, he started his school in the open woods with a stump for a desk.Laurence Jones told these angry men who were waiting to lynch him of the struggle hehad had to educate these unschooled boys and girls and to train them to be goodfarmers, mechanics, cooks, housekeepers. He told of the white men who had helpedhim in his struggle to establish Piney Woods Country School-white men who had givenhim land, lumber, and pigs, cows and money, to help him carry on his educational work.When Laurence Jones was asked afterward if he didn't hate the men who had draggedhim up the road to hang him and burn him, he replied that he was too busy with hiscause to hate-too absorbed in something bigger than himself. "I have no time toquarrel," he said, "no time for regrets, and no man can force me to stoop low enough tohate him."As Laurence Jones talked with sincere and moving eloquence as he pleaded, not forhimself but his cause, the mob began to soften. Finally, an old Confederate veteran inthe crowd said: "I believe this boy is telling the truth. I know the white men whosenames he has mentioned. He is doing a fine work. We have made a mistake. We oughtto help him instead of hang him." The Confederate veteran passed his hat through thecrowd and raised a gift of fifty-two dollars and forty cents from the very men who hadgathered there to hang the founder of Piney Woods Country School-the man who said: "Ihave no time to quarrel, no time for regrets, and no man can force me to stoop lowenough to hate him."Epictetus pointed out nineteen centuries ago that we reap what we sow and thatsomehow fate almost always makes us pay for our malefactions. "In the long run," saidEpictetus, "every man will pay the penalty for his own misdeeds. The man whoremembers this will be angry with no one, indignant with no one, revile no one, blameno one, offend no one, hate no one."Probably no other man in American history was ever more denounced and hated anddouble-crossed than Lincoln. Yet Lincoln, according to Herndon's classic biography,"never judged men by his like or dislike for them. If any given act was to be performed,he could understand that his enemy could do it just as well as anyone. If a man hadmaligned him or been guilty of personal ill-treatment, and was the fittest man for theplace, Lincoln would give him that place, just as soon as he would give it to a friend. ...I do not think he ever removed a man because he was his enemy or because he dislikedhim."Lincoln was denounced and insulted by some of the very men he had appointed topositions of high power-men like McClellan, Seward, Stanton, and Chase. Yet Lincolnbelieved, according to Herndon, his law partner, that "No man was to be eulogised forwhat he did; or censured for what he did or did not do," because "all of us are thechildren of conditions, of circumstances, of environment, of education, of acquiredhabits and of heredity moulding men as they are and will for ever be."Perhaps Lincoln was right. If you and I had inherited the same physical, mental, andemotional characteristics that our enemies have inherited, and if life had done to uswhat it has done to them, we would act exactly as they do. We couldn't possibly doanything else. As Clarence Darrow used to say: "To know all is to understand all, and thisleaves no room for judgment and condemnation." So instead of hating our enemies, let'spity them and thank God that life has not made us what they are. Instead of heapingcondemnation and revenge upon our enemies, let's give them our understanding, oursympathy, our help, our forgiveness, and our prayers."I was brought up in a family which read the Scriptures or repeated a verse from theBible each night and then knelt down and said "family prayers". I can still hear myfather, in a lonely Missouri farmhouse, repeating those words of Jesus-words that willcontinue to be repeated as long as man cherishes his ideals: "Love your enemies, blessthem that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them whichdespitefully use you, and persecute you."My father tried to live those words of Jesus; and they gave him an inner peace that theTo cultivate a mental attitude that will bring you peace and happiness, remember thatRule 2 is:Let's never try to get even with our enemies, because if we do we will hurt ourselves farmore than we hurt them. Let's do as General Eisenhower does: let's never waste aminute thinking about people we don't like.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Chapter 14 - If You Do This, You Will Never Worry About IngratitudeI recently met a business man in Texas who was burned up with indignation. I waswarned that he would tell me about it within fifteen minutes after I met him. He did.The incident he was angry about had occurred eleven months previously, but he was stillburned up about it. He couldn't speak of anything else. He had given his thirty-fouremployees ten thousand dollars in Christmas bonuses-approximately three hundreddollars each-and no one had thanked him. "I am sorry," he complained bitterly, "that Iever gave them a penny!""An angry man," said Confucius, "is always full of poison." This man was so full of poisonthat I honestly pitied him. He was about sixty years old. Now, life-insurance companiesfigure that, on the average, we will live slightly more than two-thirds of the differencebetween our present age and eighty. So this man-if he was lucky-probably had aboutfourteen or fifteen years to live. Yet he had already wasted almost one of his fewremaining years by his bitterness and resentment over an event that was past and gone.I pitied him.Instead of wallowing in resentment and self-pity, he might have asked himself why hedidn't get any appreciation. Maybe he had underpaid and overworked his employees.Maybe they considered a Christmas bonus not a gift, but something they had earned.Maybe he was so critical and unapproachable that no one dared or cared to thank him.Maybe they felt he gave the bonus because most of the profits were going for taxes,anyway.On the other hand, maybe the employees were selfish, mean, and ill-mannered. Maybethis. Maybe that. I don't know any more about it than you do. But I do know what Dr.Samuel Johnson said: "Gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation. You do not find it amonggross people."Here is the point I am trying to make: this man made the human and distressing mistakeof expecting gratitude. He just didn't know human nature.If you saved a man's life, would you expect him to be grateful? You might-but SamuelLeibowitz, who was a famous criminal lawyer before he became a judge, saved seventyeightmen from going to the electric chair! How many of these men, do you suppose,stopped to thank Samuel Leibowitz, or ever took the trouble to send him a Christmascard? How many? Guess. ... That's right-none.Christ healed ten lepers in one afternoon-but how many of those lepers even stopped tothank Him? Only one. Look it up in Saint Luke. When Christ turned around to Hisdisciples and asked: "Where are the other nine?" they had all run away. Disappearedwithout thanks! Let me ask you a question: Why should you and I-or this business man inTexas-expect more thanks for our small favours than was given Jesus Christ?And when it comes to money matters! Well, that is even more hopeless. Charles Schwabtold me that he had once saved a bank cashier who had speculated in the stock marketwith funds belonging to the bank. Schwab put up the money to save this man from goingto the penitentiary. Was the cashier grateful? Oh, yes, for a little while. Then he turnedagainst Schwab and reviled him and denounced him-the very man who had kept him outof jail!If you gave one of your relatives a million dollars, would you expect him to be grateful?Andrew Carnegie did just that. But if Andrew Carnegie had come back from the grave alittle while later, he would have been shocked to find this relative cursing him! Why?Because Old Andy had left 365 million dollars to public charities-and had "cut him offwith one measly million," as he put it.That's how it goes. Human nature has always been human nature-and it probably won'tchange in your lifetime. So why not accept it? Why not be as realistic about it as was oldMarcus Aurelius, one of the wisest men who ever ruled the Roman Empire. He wrote inhis diary one day: "I am going to meet people today who talk too much-people who areselfish, egotistical, ungrateful. But I won't be surprised or disturbed, for I couldn'timagine a world without such people." That makes sense, doesn't it? If you and I goaround grumbling about ingratitude, who is to blame? Is it human nature-or is it ourignorance of human nature? Let's not expect gratitude. Then, if we get someoccasionally, it will come as a delightful surprise. If we don't get it, we won't bedisturbed.Here is the first point I am trying to make in this chapter: It is natural for people toforget to be grateful; so, if we go around expecting gratitude, we are headed straightfor a lot of heartaches.I know a woman in New York who is always complaining because she is lonely. Not oneof her relatives wants to go near her-and no wonder. If you visit her, she will tell you forhours what she did for her nieces when they were children: she nursed them throughthe measles and the mumps and the whooping-cough; she boarded them for years; shehelped to send one of them through business school, and she made a home for the otheruntil she got married.Do the nieces come to see her? Oh, yes, now and then, out of a spirit of duty. But theydread these visits. They know they will have to sit and listen for hours to half-veiledreproaches. They will be treated to an endless litany of bitter complaints and selfpitying sighs. And when this woman can no longer bludgeon, browbeat, or bully hernieces into coming to see her, she has one of her "spells". She develops a heart attack.Is the heart attack real? Oh, yes. The doctors say she has "a nervous heart", suffers frompalpitations. But the doctors also say they can do nothing for her-her trouble isemotional.What this woman really wants is love and attention. But she calls it "gratitude". And shewill never get gratitude or love, because she demands it. She thinks it's her due.There are thousands of women like her, women who are ill from "ingratitude",loneliness, and neglect. They long to be loved; but the only way in this world that theycan ever hope to be loved is to stop asking for it and to start pouring out love without