如何停止焦虑开始新生活-20

Would Peary have been denounced if he had had a desk job in the Navy Department inWashington. No. He wouldn't have been important enough then to have arousedjealousy.General Grant had an even worse experience than Admiral Peary. In 1862, GeneralGrant won the first great decisive victory that the North had enjoyed-a victory that wasachieved in one afternoon, a victory that made Grant a national idol overnight-a victorythat had tremendous repercussions even in far-off Europe-a victory that set church bellsringing and bonfires blazing from Maine to the banks of the Mississippi. Yet within sixweeks after achieving that great victory, Grant -hero of the North-was arrested and hisarmy was taken from him. He wept with humiliation and despair.Why was General U.S. Grant arrested at the flood tide of his victory? Largely because hehad aroused the jealousy and envy of his arrogant superiors.If we are tempted to be worried about unjust criticism here is Rule 1:Remember that unjust criticism is often a disguised compliment. Remember that no oneever kicks a dead dog.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Chapter 21 -Do This-and Criticism Can't Hurt YouI once interviewed Major-General Smedley Butler-old "Gimlet-Eye". Old "Hell-Devil"Butler! Remember him? The most colourful, swashbuckling general who evercommanded the United States Marines.He told me that when he was young, he was desperately eager to be popular, wanted tomake a good impression on everyone. In those days the slightest criticism smarted andstung. But he confessed that thirty years in the Marines had toughened his hide. "I havebeen berated and insulted," he said, "and denounced as a yellow dog, a snake, and askunk. I have been cursed by the experts. I have been called every possible combinationof unprintable cuss words in the English language. Bother me? Huh! When I hearsomeone cussing me now, I never turn my head to see who is talking."Maybe old "Gimlet-Eye" Butler was too indifferent to criticism; but one thing is sure:most of us take the little jibes and javelins that are hurled at us far too seriously. Iremember the time, years ago, when a reporter from the New York Sun attended ademonstration meeting of my adult-education classes and lampooned me and my work.Was I burned up? I took it as a personal insult. I telephoned Gill Hodges, the Chairman ofthe Executive Committee of the Sun, and practically demanded that he print an articlestating the facts-instead of ridicule. I was determined to make the punishment fit thecrime.I am ashamed now of the way I acted. I realise now that half the people who bought thepaper never saw that article. Half of those who read it regarded it as a source ofinnocent merriment. Half of those who gloated over it forgot all about it in a fewweeks.I realise now that people are not thinking about you and me or caring what is said aboutus. They are thinking about themselves-before breakfast, after breakfast, and right onuntil ten minutes past midnight. They would be a thousand times more concerned abouta slight headache of their own than they would about the news of your death or mine.Even if you and I are lied about, ridiculed, double-crossed, knifed in the back, and solddown the river by one out of every six of our most intimate friends-let's not indulge inan orgy of self-pity. Instead, let's remind ourselves that that's precisely what happenedto Jesus. One of His twelve most intimate friends turned traitor for a bribe that wouldamount, in our modern money, to about nineteen dollars. Another one of His twelvemost intimate friends openly deserted Jesus the moment He got into trouble, anddeclared three times that he didn't even know Jesus-and he swore as he said it. One outof six! That is what happened to Jesus. Why should you and I expect a better score?I discovered years ago that although I couldn't keep people from criticising me unjustly,I could do something infinitely more important: I could determine whether I would letthe unjust condemnation disturb me.Let's be clear about this: I am not advocating ignoring all criticism. Far from it. I amtalking about ignoring only unjust criticism. I once asked Eleanor Roosevelt how shehandled unjust criticism-and Allah knows she's had a lot of it. She probably has moreardent friends and more violent enemies than any other woman who ever lived in theWhite House.She told me that as a young girl she was almost morbidly shy, afraid of what peoplemight say. She was so afraid of criticism that one day she asked her aunt, TheodoreRoosevelt's sister for advice. She said: "Auntie Bye, I want to do so-and-so. But I'm afraidof being criticised."Teddy Roosevelt's sister looked her in the eye and said: "Never be bothered by whatpeople say, as long as you know in your heart you are right." Eleanor Roosevelt told methat that bit of advice proved to be her Rock of Gibraltar years later, when she was inthe White House. She told me that the only way we can avoid all criticism is to be like aDresden-china figure and stay on a shelf. "Do what you feel in your heart to be right-foryou'll be criticised, anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't." Thatis her advice.When the late Matthew C. Brush, was president of the American InternationalCorporation at 40 Wall Street, I asked him if he was ever sensitive to criticism; and hereplied: "Yes, I was very sensitive to it in my early days. I was eager then to have all theemployees in the organisation think I was perfect. If they didn't, it worried me. I wouldtry to please first one person who had been sounding off against me; but the very thing Idid to patch it up with him would make someone else mad. Then when I tried to fix itup with this person, I would stir up a couple of other bumble-bees. I finally discoveredthat the more I tried to pacify and to smooth over injured feelings in order to escapepersonal criticism, the more certain I was to increase my enemies. So finally I said tomyself: 'If you get your head above the crowd, you're going to be criticised. So get usedto the idea.' That helped me tremendously. From that time on I made it a rule to do thevery best I could and then put up my old umbrella and let the rain of criticism drain offme instead of running down my neck."Deems Taylor went a bit further: he let the rain of criticism run down his neck and hada good laugh over it-in public. When he was giving his comments during the intermissionof the Sunday afternoon radio concerts of the New York Philharmonic-SymphonyOrchestra, one woman wrote him a letter calling him "a liar, a traitor, a snake and amoron".On the following week's broadcast, Mr. Taylor read this letter over the radio to millionsof listeners. In his book, Of Men & Music, he tells us that a few days later he receivedanother letter from the same lady, "expressing her unaltered opinion that I was still aliar, a traitor, a snake and a moron. I have a suspicion," adds Mr. Taylor, "that she didn'tcare for that talk." We can't keep from admiring a man who takes criticism like that. Weadmire his serenity, his unshaken poise, and his sense of humour.When Charles Schwab was addressing the student body at Princeton, he confessed thatone of the most important lessons he had ever learned was taught to him by an oldGerman who worked in Schwab's steel mill. The old German got involved in a hotwartime argument with the other steelworkers, and they tossed him into the river."When he came into my office," Mr. Schwab said, "covered with mud and water, I askedhim what he had said to the men who had thrown him into the river, and he replied: 'Ijust laughed.' "Mr. Schwab declared that he had adopted that old German's words as his motto: "Justlaugh."That motto is especially good when you are the victim of unjust criticism. You cananswer the man who answers you back, but what can you say to the man who "justlaughs"?Lincoln might have broken under the strain of the Civil War if he hadn't learned the follyof trying to answer all his savage critics. He finally said: "If I were to try to read, muchless to answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for anyother business. I do the very best I know how-the very best I can; and I mean to keepon doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, then what is said against mewon't matter. If the end brings me out wrong, then ten angels swearing I was rightwould make no difference."When you and I are unjustly criticised, let's remember Rule 2:Do the very best yon can: and then put up your old umbrella and keep the rain ofcriticism from running down the back of your neck.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Chapter 22 - Fool Things I Have DoneI have a folder in my private filing cabinet marked "FTD"-short for "Fool Things I HaveDone". I put in that folder written records of the fools things I have been guilty of. Isometimes dictate these memos to my secretary, but sometimes they are so personal,so stupid, that I am ashamed to dictate them, so I write them out in longhand.I can still recall some of the criticisms of Dale Carnegie that I put in my "FTD" foldersfifteen years ago. If I had been utterly honest with myself, I would now have a filingcabinet bursting out at the seams with these "FTD" memos. I can truthfully repeat whatKing Saul said more than twenty centuries ago: "I have played the fool and have erredexceedingly."When I get out my "FTD" folders and re-read the criticisms I have written of myself, theyhelp me deal with the toughest problem I shall ever face: the management of DaleCarnegie.I used to blame my troubles on other people; but as I have grown older-and wiser, Ihope-I have realised that I myself, in the last analysis, am to blame for almost all mymisfortunes. Lots of people have discovered that, as they grow older. "No one butmyself," said Napoleon at St. Helena, "no one but myself can be blamed for my fall. Ihave been my own greatest enemy-the cause of my own disastrous fate."Let me tell you about a man I know who was an artist when it came to self-appraisal andself-management. His name was H. P. Howell. When the news of his sudden death in thedrugstore of the Hotel Ambassador in New York was flashed across the nation on July 31,1944, Wall Street was shocked, for he was a leader in American finance-chairman of theboard of the Commercial National Bank and Trust Company, 56 Wall Street, and adirector of several large corporations. He grew up with little formal education, startedout in life clerking in a country store, and later became credit manager for U.S. Steel-and was on his way to position and power."For years I have kept an engagement book showing all the appointments I have duringthe day," Mr. Howell told me when I asked him to explain the reasons for his success."My family never makes any plans for me on Saturday night, for the family knows that Idevote a part of each Saturday evening to self-examination and a review and appraisalof my work during the week. After dinner I go off by myself, open my engagement book,and think over all the interviews, discussions and meetings that have taken place sinceMonday morning. I ask myself: 'What mistakes did I make that time?' 'What did I do thatwas right-and in what way could I have improved my performance?' 'What lessons can Ilearn from that experience?' I sometimes find that this weekly review makes me veryunhappy. Sometimes I am astonished by my own blunders. Of course, as the years havegone by, these blunders have become less frequent. This system of self-analysis,continued year after year, has done more for me than any other one thing I have everattempted."Maybe H.P. Howell borrowed his idea from Ben Franklin. Only Franklin didn't wait untilSaturday night. He gave himself a severe going-over every night. He discovered that hehad thirteen serious faults. Here are three of them: wasting time, stewing around overtrifles, arguing and contradicting people. Wise old Ben Franklin realised that, unless heeliminated these handicaps, he wasn't going to get very far. So he battled with one ofhis shortcomings every day for a week, and kept a record of who had won each day'sslugging match. The next day, he would pick out another bad habit, put on the gloves,and when the bell rang he would come out of his corner fighting. Franklin kept up thisbattle with his faults every week for more than two years.No wonder he became one of the best-loved and most influential men America everproduced!Elbert Hubbard said: "Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes every day.Wisdom consists in not exceeding that limit."The small man flies into a rage over the slightest criticism, but the wise man is eager tolearn from those who have censured him and reproved him and "disputed the passagewith him". Walt Whitman put it this way: "Have you learned lessons only of those whoadmired you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you? Have you not learnedgreat lessons from those who rejected you, and braced themselves against you, ordisputed the passage with you?"Instead of waiting for our enemies to criticise us or our work, let's beat them to it. Let'sbe our own most severe critic. Let's find and remedy all our weaknesses before ourenemies get a chance to say a word. That is what Charles Darwin did. In fact, he spentfifteen years criticising-well, the story goes like this: When Darwin completed themanuscript of his immortal book, The Origin of Species, he realised that the publicationof his revolutionary concept of creation would rock the intellectual and religious worlds.So he became his own critic and spent another fifteen years, checking his data,challenging his reasoning, criticising his conclusions.Suppose someone denounced you as "a damn fool"-what would you do? Get angry?Indignant? Here is what Lincoln did: Edward M. Stanton, Lincoln's Secretary of War, oncecalled Lincoln "a damn fool". Stanton was indignant because Lincoln had been meddlingin his affairs. In order to please a selfish politician, Lincoln had signed an ordertransferring certain regiments. Stanton not only refused to carry out Lincoln's orders butswore that Lincoln was a damn fool for ever signing such orders. What happened? WhenLincoln was told what Stanton had said, Lincoln calmly replied: "If Stanton said I was adamned fool, then I must be, for he is nearly always right. I'll just step over and see formyself."Lincoln did go to see Stanton. Stanton convinced him that the order was wrong, andLincoln withdrew it. Lincoln welcomed criticism when he knew it was sincere, foundedon knowledge, and given in a spirit of helpfulness.You and I ought to welcome that kind of criticism, too, for we can't even hope to beright more than three times out of four. At least, that was all Theodore Roosevelt saidhe could hope for, when he was in the White House. Einstein, the most profound thinkernow living, confesses that his conclusions are wrong ninety-nine per cent of the time!"The opinions of our enemies," said La Rochefoucauld, "come nearer to the truth aboutus than do our own opinions."I know that statement may be true many times; yet when anyone starts to criticise me,if I do not watch myself, I instantly and automatically leap to the defensive-even beforeI have the slightest idea what my critic is going to say. I am disgusted with myself everytime I do it. We all tend to resent criticism and lap up praise, regardless of whethereither the criticism or the praise be justified. We are not creatures of logic. We arecreatures of emotions. Our logic is like a canoe tossed about on a deep, dark, stormysea of emotion. Most of us have a pretty good opinion of ourselves as we are now. But inforty years from now, we may look back and laugh at the persons we are today.William Allen White-"the most celebrated small-town newspaper editor in history"lookedback and described the young man he had been fifty years earlier as "swellheaded... a fool with a lot of nerve ... a supercilious young Pharisee ... a complacentreactionary." Twenty years from now maybe you and I may be using similar adjectives todescribe the persons we are today. We may. ... who knows?In previous chapters, I have talked about what to do when you are unjustly criticised.But here is another idea: when your anger is rising because you feel you have beenunjustly condemned, why not stop and say: "Just a minute. ... I am far from perfect. IfEinstein admits he is wrong ninety-nine per cent of the time, maybe I am wrong at leasteighty per cent of the time. Maybe I deserve this criticism. If I do, I ought to be thankfulfor it, and try to profit by it."Charles Luckman, president of the Pepsodent Company, spends a millions dollars a yearputting Bob Hope on the air. He doesn't look at the letters praising the programme, buthe insists on seeing the critical letters. He knows he may learn something from them.The Ford Company is so eager to find out what is wrong with its management andoperations that it recently polled the employees and invited them to criticise thecompany.I know a former soap salesman who used even to ask for criticism. When he first startedout selling soap for Colgate, orders came slowly. He worried about losing his job. Sincehe knew there was nothing wrong with the soap or the price, he figured that the troublemust be himself. When he failed to make a sale, he would often walk around the blocktrying to figure out what was wrong. Had he been too vague? Did he lack enthusiasm?Sometimes he would go back to the merchant and say: "I haven't come back here to tryto sell you any soap. I have come back to get your advice and your criticism. Won't youplease tell me what I did that was wrong when I tried to sell you soap a few minutesago? You are far more experienced and successful than I am. Please give me yourcriticism. Be frank. Don't pull your punches."This attitude won him a lot of friends and priceless advice.What do you suppose happened to him? Today, he is president of the Colgate-Palmolive-Peet Soap Company-the world's largest makers of soap. His name is E. H. Little. Lastyear, only fourteen people in America had a larger income than he had: $240,141.It takes a big man to do what H. P. Howell, Ben Franklin, and E. H. Little did. And now,while nobody is looking, why not peep into the mirror and ask yourself whether youbelong in that kind of company 1To keep from worrying about criticism, here is Rule 3:Let's keep a record of the fool things we have done and criticise ourselves. Since wecan't hope to be perfect, let's do what E.H. Little did: let's ask for unbiased, helpful,constructive criticism.~~~~Part Six In A Nutshell -How To Keep From Worrying About CriticismRULE 1: Unjust criticism is often a disguised compliment. It often means that you havearoused jealousy and envy. Remember that no one ever kicks a dead dog.RULE 2: Do the very best you can; and then put up your old umbrella and keep the rainof criticism from running down the back of your neck.RULE 3: Let's keep a record of the fool things we have done and criticise ourselves.Since we can't hope to be perfect, let's do what E. H. Little did: let's ask for unbiased,helpful, constructive criticism.Part Seven -Six Ways To Prevent Fatigue And Worry And Keep Your Energy And SpiritsHighChapter 23: How To Add One Hour A Day To Tour Waking LifeWhy am I writing a chapter on preventing fatigue in a book on preventing worry? That issimple: because fatigue often produces worry, or, at least, it makes you susceptible toworry. Any medical student will tell you that fatigue lowers physical resistance to thecommon cold and hundreds of other diseases and any psychiatrist will tell you thatfatigue also lowers your resistance to the emotions of fear and worry. So preventingfatigue tends to prevent worry.Did I say "tends to prevent worry"? That is putting it mildly. Dr. Edmund Jacobson goesmuch further. Dr. Jacob-son has written two books on relaxation: Progressive Relaxationand You Must Relax', and as director of the University of Chicago Laboratory for ClinicalPhysiology, he has spent years conducting investigations in using relaxation as a methodin medical practice. He declares that any nervous or emotional state "fails to exist inthe presence of complete relaxation". That is another way of saying: You cannotcontinue to worry if you relax.So, to prevent fatigue and worry, the first rule is: Rest often. Rest before you get tired.Why is that so important? Because fatigue accumulates with astonishing rapidity. TheUnited States Army has discovered by repeated tests that even young men-mentoughened by years of Army training-can march better, and hold up longer, if theythrow down their packs and rest ten minutes out of every hour. So the Army forces themto do just that. Your heart is just as smart as the U.S. Army. Your heart pumps enoughblood through your body every day to fill a railway tank car. It exerts enough energyevery twenty-four hours to shovel twenty tons of coal on to a platform three feet high.It does this incredible amount of work for fifty, seventy, or maybe ninety years. Howcan it stand it? Dr. Walter B. Cannon, of the Harvard Medical School, explains it. Hesays: "Most people have the idea that the heart is working all the time. As a matter offact, there is a definite rest period after each contraction. When beating at a moderaterate of seventy pulses per minute, the heart is actually working only nine hours out ofthe twenty-four. In the aggregate its rest periods total a full fifteen hours per day."During World War II, Winston Churchill, in his late sixties and early seventies, was ableto work sixteen hours a day, year after year, directing the war efforts of the BritishEmpire. A phenomenal record. His secret? He worked in bed each morning until eleveno'clock, reading papers, dictating orders, making telephone calls, and holding importantconferences. After lunch he went to bed once more and slept for an hour. In theevening he went to bed once more and slept for two hours before having dinner ateight. He didn't cure fatigue. He didn't have to cure it. He prevented it. Because herested frequently, he was able to work on, fresh and fit, until long past midnight.The original John D. Rockefeller made two extraordinary records. He accumulated thegreatest fortune the world had ever seen up to that time and he also lived to be ninetyeight.How did he do it? The chief reason, of course, was because he had inherited atendency to live long. Another reason was his habit of taking a half-hour nap in hisoffice every noon. He would lie down on his office couch-and not even the President ofthe United States could get John D. on the phone while he was having his snooze!In his excellent book. Why Be Tired, Daniel W. Josselyn observes: "Rest is not a matterof doing absolutely nothing. Rest is repair." There is so much repair power in a shortperiod of rest that even a five-minute nap will help to forestall fatigue! Connie Mack,the grand old man of baseball, told me that if he doesn't take an afternoon nap before agame, he is all tuckered out at around the fifth inning. But if he does go to sleep, if foronly five minutes, he can last throughout an entire double-header without feeling tired.When I asked Eleanor Roosevelt how she was able to carry such an exhausting scheduleduring the twelve years she was in the White House, she said that before meeting acrowd or making a speech, she would often sit in a chair or davenport, close her eyes,and relax for twenty minutes.I recently interviewed Gene Autry in his dressing-room at Madison Square Garden, wherehe was the star attraction at the world's championship rodeo. I noticed an army cot inhis dressing-room. "I lie down there every afternoon," Gene Autry said, "and get anhour's nap between performances. When I am making pictures in Hollywood," hecontinued, "I often relax in a big easy chair and get two or three ten-minute naps a day.They buck me up tremendously."