如何停止焦虑开始新生活-27

something more reliable than that. So I got a job working for a railway-station agent andlearned telegraphy in my spare time. Later, I got a job working as relief operator for theFrisco Railway. I was sent here, there, and yonder to relieve other station agents whowere ill or on vacation or had more work than they could do. That job paid $150 permonth. Later, when I started out to better myself, I always figured that that railroadjob meant economic safety. So I always kept the road open back to that job. It was myline of supplies, and I never cut myself off from it until I was firmly established in a newand better position.For example, back in 1928, when I was working as a relief operator for the FriscoRailway in Chelsea, .Oklahoma, a stranger drifted in one evening to send a telegram. Heheard me playing the guitar and singing cowboy songs and told me I was good-told methat I ought to go to New York and get a job on the stage or radio. Naturally, I wasflattered; and when I saw the name he signed to his telegram, I was almost breathless:Instead of rushing off to New York at once, I thought the matter over carefully for ninemonths. I finally came to the conclusion that I had nothing to lose and everything togain by going to New York and giving the old town a whirl. I had a railroad pass: I couldtravel free. I could sleep sitting up in my seat, and I could carry some sandwiches andfruit for my meals.So I went. When I reached New York, I slept in a furnished room for five dollars a week,ate at the Automat, and tramped the streets for ten weeks-and got nowhere. I wouldhave been worried sick if I hadn't had a job to go back to. I had already worked for therailway five years. That meant I had seniority rights; but in order to protect thoserights, I couldn't lay off longer than ninety days. By this time, I had already been in NewYork seventy days, so I rushed back to Oklahoma on my pass and began working again toprotect my line of supply. I worked for a few months, saved money, and returned toNew York for another try. This time I got a break. One day, while waiting for aninterview in a recording-studio office, I played my guitar and sang a song to the girlreceptionist: "Jeannine, I Dream of Lilac Time". While I was singing that song, the manwho wrote it-Nat Schildkraut-drifted into the office. Naturally, he was pleased to hearanyone singing his song. So he gave me a note of introduction and sent me down to theVictor Recording Company. I made a record. I was no good-too stiff and self-conscious.So I took the advice of the Victor Recording man: I went back to Tulsa, worked for therailway by day, and at night I sang cowboy songs on a sustaining radio programme. Iliked that arrangement. It meant that I was keeping my line of supplies open-so I hadno worries.I sang for nine months on radio station KVOO in Tulsa. During that time, Jimmy Long andI wrote a song entitled "That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine". It caught on. ArthurSattherly, head of the American Recording Company, asked me to make a recording. Itclicked. I made a number of other recordings for fifty dollars each, and finally got a jobsinging cowboy songs over radio station WLS in Chicago. Salary: forty dollars a week.After singing there four years, my salary was raised to ninety dollars a week, and Ipicked up another three hundred dollars doing personal appearances every night intheatres.Then in 1934, I got a break that opened up enormous possibilities. The League ofDecency was formed to clean up the movies. So Hollywood producers decided to put oncowboy pictures; but they wanted a new kind of cowboy-one who could sing. The manwho owned the American Recording Company was also part owner of Republic Pictures."If you want a singing cowboy," he said to his associates, "I have got one making recordsfor us." That is how I broke into the movies. I started making singing-cowboy pictures forone hundred dollars a week. I had serious doubts about whether I would succeed inpictures, but I didn't worry. I knew I could always go back to my old job.My success in pictures exceeded my wildest expectations. I now get a salary of onehundred thousand a year plus one half of all the profits on my pictures. However, Irealise that this arrangement won't go on for ever. But I am not worried. I know that nomatter what happens-even if I lose every dollar I have-I can always go back to Oklahomaand get a job working for the Frisco Railway. I have protected my line of supplies.~~~~I Heard A Voice In IndiaByE. Stanley JonesOne of America's most dynamic speakers and the most famous missionary of hisgenerationI have devoted forty years of my life to missionary work in India. At first, I found itdifficult to endure the terrible heat plus the nervous strain of the great task thatstretched before me. At the end of eight years, I was suffering so severely from brainfatigue and nervous exhaustion that I collapsed, not once but several times. I wasordered to take a year's furlough in America. On the boat returning to America, Icollapsed again while speaking at a Sunday-morning service on the ship, and the ship'sdoctor put me to bed for the remainder of the trip.After a year's rest in America, I started back to India, but stopped on the way to holdevangelistic meetings among the university students in Manila. In the midst of the strainof these meetings, I collapsed several times. Physicians warned me that if I returned toIndia, I would die. In spite of their warnings, I continued on to India, but I went with adeepening cloud upon me. When I arrived in Bombay, I was so broken that I wentstraight to the hills and rested for several months. Then I returned to the plains tocontinue my work. It was no use. I collapsed and was forced to return to the hills foranother long rest. Again I descended to the plains, and again I was shocked and crushedto discover that I couldn't take it. I was exhausted mentally, nervously, and physically. Iwas completely at the end of my resources. I feared that I would be a physical wreck forthe balance of my life.If I didn't get help from somewhere, I realised that I would have to give up mymissionary career, go back to America, and work on a farm to try to regain my health. Itwas one of my darkest hours. At that time I was holding a series of meetings inLucknow. While praying one night, an event happened that completely transformed mylife. While in prayer-and I was not particularly thinking about myself at the time-a voiceseemed to say: "Are you yourself ready for this work to which I have called you?"I replied: "No, Lord, I am done for. I have reached the end of my resources."The Voice replied "If you will turn that over to Me and not worry about it, I will takecare of it."I quickly answered: "Lord, I close the bargain right here."A great peace settled into my heart and pervaded my whole being. I knew it was done!Life-abundant life-had taken possession of me. I was so lifted up that I scarcely touchedthe road as I quietly walked home that night. Every inch was holy ground. For days afterthat I hardly knew I had a body. I went through the days, working all day and far intothe night, and came down to bedtime wondering why in the world I should ever go tobed at all, for there was not the slightest trace of tiredness of any kind. I seemedpossessed by life and peace and rest-by Christ Himself.The question came as to whether I should tell this. I shrank from it, but I felt I shouldanddid. After that it was sink or swim before everybody. More than a score of the moststrenuous years of my life have gone by since then, but the old trouble has neverreturned. I have never had such health. But it was more than a physical touch. I seemedto have tapped new life for body, mind, and spirit. After that experience, life for mefunctioned on a permanently higher level. And I had done nothing but take it!During the many years that have gone by since then, I have travelled all over the world,frequently lecturing three times a day, and have found time and strength to write TheChrist of the Indian Road and eleven other books. Yet in the midst of all this, I havenever missed, or even been late to, an appointment. The worries that once beset mehave long since vanished, and now, in my sixty-third year, I am overflowing withabounding vitality and the joy of serving and living for others.I suppose that the physical and mental transformation that I have experienced could bepicked to pieces psychologically and explained. It does not matter. Life is bigger thanprocesses and overflows and dwarfs them.This one thing I know: my life was completely transformed and uplifted that night inLucknow, thirty-one years ago, when at the depth of my weakness and depression, avoice said to me: "If you will turn that over to Me and not worry about it, I will take careof it," and I replied: "Lord, I close the bargain right here."~~~~When The Sheriff Came In My Front DoorByHomer CroyNovelist, 150 Pinehurst Avenue, New York, New YorkThe bitterest moment of my life occurred one day in 1933 when the sheriff came in thefront door and I went out the back. I had lost my home at 10 Standish Road, Forest Hills,Long Island, where my children were born and where I and my family had lived foreighteen years. I had never dreamed that this could happen to me. Twelve years before,I thought I was sitting on top of the world. I had sold the motion-picture rights to mynovel West of the Water Tower for a top Hollywood price. I lived abroad with my familyfor two years. We summered in Switzerland and wintered on the French Riviera-justlike the idle rich.I spent six months in Paris and wrote a novel entitled They Had to See Paris. Will Rogersappeared in the screen version. It was his first talking picture. I had tempting offers toremain in Hollywood and write several of Will Rogers' pictures. But I didn't. I returned toNew York. And my troubles began!It slowly dawned on me that I had great dormant abilities that I had never developed. Ibegan to fancy myself a shrewd business man. Somebody told me that John Jacob Astorhad made millions investing in vacant land in New York. Who was Astor? Just animmigrant peddler with an accent. If he could do it, why couldn't I? ... I was going to berich! I began to read the yachting magazines.I had the courage of ignorance. I didn't know any more about buying and selling realestate than an Eskimo knows about oil furnaces. How was I to get the money to launchmyself on my spectacular financial career? That was simple. I mortgaged my home, andbought some of the finest building lots in Forest Hills. I was going to hold this land untilit reached a fabulous price, then sell it and live in luxury-I who had never sold a pieceof real estate as big as a doll's handkerchief. I pitied the plodders who slaved in officesfor a mere salary. I told myself that God had not seen fit to touch every man with thedivine fire of financial genius.Suddenly, the great depression swept down upon me like a Kansas cyclone and shook meas a tornado would shake a hen coop.I had to pour $220 a month into that monster-mouthed piece of Good Earth. Oh, howfast those months came! In addition, I had to keep up the payments on our nowmortgagedhouse and find enough food. I was worried. I tried to write humour for themagazines. My attempts at humour sounded like the lamentations of Jeremiah! I wasunable to sell anything. The novel I wrote failed. I ran out of money. I had nothing onwhich I could borrow money except my typewriter and the gold fillings in my teeth. Themilk company stopped delivering milk. The gas company turned off the gas. We had tobuy one of those little outdoor camp stoves you see advertised; it had a cylinder ofgasoline; you pump it up by hand and it shoots out a flame with a hissing like an angrygoose.We ran out of coal; the company sued us. Our only heat was the fireplace. I would goout at night and pick up boards and left-overs from the new homes that the rich peoplewere building ... I who had started out to be one of these rich people.I was so worried I couldn't sleep. I often got up in the middle of the night and walked forhours to exhaust myself so I could fall asleep.I lost not only the vacant land I had bought, but all my heart's blood that I had pouredinto it.The bank closed the mortgage on my home and put me and my family out on the street.In some way, we managed to get hold of a few dollars and rent a small apartment. Wemoved in the last day of 1933. I sat down on a packing case and looked around. An oldsaying of my mother's came back: "Don't cry over spilt milk."But this wasn't milk. This was my heart's blood!After I had sat there a while I said to myself: "Well, I've hit bottom and I've stood it.There's no place to go now but up."I began to think of the fine things that the mortgage had not taken from me. I still hadmy health and my friends. I would start again. I would not grieve about the past. I wouldrepeat to myself every day the words I had often heard my mother say about spilt milk.I put into my work the energy that I had been putting into worrying. Little by little, mysituation began to improve. I am almost thankful now that I had to go through all thatmisery; it gave me strength, fortitude, and confidence. I know now what it means to hitbottom. I know it doesn't kill you. I know we can stand more than we think we can.When little worries and anxieties and uncertainties try to disturb me now, I banish themby reminding myself of the time I sat on the packing case and said: "I've hit bottom andI've stood it. There is no place to go now but up."What's the principle here? Don't try to saw sawdust. Accept the inevitable! If you can'tgo lower, yon can try going up.~~~~The Toughest Opponent I Ever Fought Was WorryByJack DempseyDuring my career in the ring, I found that Old Man Worry was an almost tougheropponent than the heavyweight boxers I fought. I realised that I had to learn to stopworrying, or worry would sap my vitality and undermine my success. So, little by little, Iworked out a system for myself. Here are some of the things I did:1. To keep up my courage in the ring, I would give myself a pep talk during the fight.For example, while I was fighting Firpo, I kept saying over and over: "Nothing is going tostop me. He is not going to hurt me. I won't feel his blows. I can't get hurt. I am going tokeep going, no matter what happens." Making positive statements like that to myself,and thinking positive thoughts, helped me a lot. It even kept my mind so occupied that Ididn't feel the blows. During my career, I have had my lips smashed, my eyes cut, myribs cracked-and Firpo knocked me clear through the ropes, and I landed on a reporter'stypewriter and wrecked it. But I never felt even one of Firpo's blows. There was onlyone blow that I ever really felt. That was the night Lester Johnson broke three of myribs. The punch never hurt me; but it affected my breathing. I can honestly say I neverfelt any other blow I ever got in the ring.2. Another thing I did was to keep reminding myself of the futility of worry. Most of myworrying was done before the big bouts, while I was going through training. I wouldoften lie awake at nights for hours, tossing and worrying, unable to sleep. I would worryfor fear I might break my hand or sprain my ankle or get my eye cut badly in the firstround so I couldn't co-ordinate my punches. When I got myself into this state of nerves, Iused to get out of bed, look into the mirror, and give myself a good talking to. I wouldsay: "What a fool you are to be worrying about something than hasn't happened and maynever happen. Life is short. I have only a few years to live, so I must enjoy life." I keptsaying to myself: "Nothing is important but my health. Nothing is important but myhealth." I kept reminding myself that losing sleep and worrying would destroy myhealth. I found that by saying these things to myself over and over, night after night,year after year, they finally got under my skin, and I could brush off my worries like somuch water.3. The third-and best-thing I did was pray! While I was training for a bout, I alwaysprayed several times a day. When I was in the ring, I always prayed just before the bellsounded for each round. That helped me fight with courage and confidence. I havenever gone to bed in my life without saying a prayer; and I have never eaten a meal inmy life without first thanking God for it ... Have my prayers been answered? Thousandsof times!~~~~I Prayed To God To Keep Me Out Of An Orphan's HomeByKathleen HalterHousewife, 1074 Roth, University City 14, MissouriAs a little child, my life was filled with horror. My mother had heart trouble. Day afterday, I saw her faint and fall to the floor. We all feared she was going to die, and Ibelieved that all little girls whose mothers died were sent to the Central WesleyanOrphans' Home, located in the little town of Warrenton, Missouri, where we lived. Idreaded 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 painuntil he died two years later. He couldn't feed himself or turn over in bed. To deadenhis pain, I had to give him morphine hypodermics every three hours, day and night. I didthis for two years. I was teaching music at the time at the Central Wesleyan College inWarrenton, Missouri. When the neighbours heard my brother screaming with pain, theywould telephone me at college and I would leave my music class and rush home to givemy brother another injection of morphine. Every night when I went to bed, I would setthe alarm clock to go off three hours later so I would be sure to get up to attend to mybrother. I remember that on winter nights I would keep a bottle of milk outside thewindow, 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 additionalincentive to get up.In the midst of all these troubles, I did two things that kept me from indulging in selfpityand worrying and embittering my life with resentment. First, I kept myself busyteaching music from twelve to fourteen hours a day, so I had little time to think of mytroubles; and when I was tempted to feel sorry for myself, I kept saying to myself overand over: "Now, listen, as long as you can walk and feed yourself and are free fromintense pain, you ought to be the happiest person in the world. No matter whathappens, never forget that as long as you live! Never! Never!"I was determined to do everything in my power to cultivate an unconscious andcontinuous 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 inspite of my troubles I would be the happiest person in Warrenton, Missouri. Maybe Ididn't succeed in achieving that goal, but I did succeed in making myself the mostgrateful young woman in my town-and probably few of my associates worried less than Idid.This Missouri music teacher applied two principles described in this book: she kept toobusy to worry, and she counted her blessings. The same technique may be helpful toyou.~~~~I Was Acting Like An Hysterical WomanByCameron ShippMagazine WriterI had been working very happily in the publicity department of the Warner Brothersstudio in California for several years. I was a unit man and feature writer. I wrotestories for newspapers and magazines about Warner Brother stars.Suddenly, I was promoted. I was made the assistant publicity director. As a matter offact, 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, andcomplete charge of a staff of seventy-five writers, exploiters, and radio men. I wasenormously impressed. I went straight out and bought a new suit. I tried to speak withdignity. 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 haddescended upon my shoulders. I perceived that the lives, both private and public, ofsuch renowned persons as Bette Davis, Olivia De Havilland, James Cagney, Edward G.Robinson, Errol Flynn, Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan, Alexis Smith, and Alan Halewere 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 theScreen Publicists Guild. I liked to do this work, liked to meet my friends at guildmeetings. But these gatherings became matters of dread. After every meeting, I wasviolently ill. Often I had to stop my car on the way home, pulling myself together beforeI could drive on. There seemed to be so much to do, so little time in which to do it. Itwas all vital. And I was woefully inadequate.I am being perfectly truthful-this was the most painful illness of my entire life. Therewas always a tight fist in my vitals. I lost weight. I could not sleep. The pain wasconstant.So I went to see a renowned expert in internal medicine. An advertising manrecommended 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 Idid for a living. He seemed more interested in my job than in my ailments, but I wassoon 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 hearthe verdict."Mr. Shipp," he said, leaning back and offering me a cigarette, "we have been throughthese exhaustive tests. They were absolutely necessary, although I knew of course aftermy 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 ofwork 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 noulcers."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 followthe prescription immediately, so I'll give you a crutch. Here are some pills. They containbelladonna. Take as many as you like. When you use these up, come back and I'll giveyou more. They won't hurt you. But they will always relax you.