How To Stop Worrying And Start Living

Some readers are going to snort at the idea of making so much over a hackneyed proverb like "Don't cry over spilt milk." I know it is trite, commonplace, and a platitude. I know you have heard it a thousand times. But I also know that these hackneyed proverbs contain the very essence of the distilled wisdom of all ages. They have come out of the fiery experience of the human race and have been handed down through countless generations. If you were to read everything that has ever been written about worry by the great scholars of all time, you would never read anything more basic or more profound than such hackneyed proverbs as "Don't cross your bridges until you come to them" and "Don't cry over spilt milk." If we only applied those two proverbs-instead of snorting at them-we wouldn't need this book at all. In fact, if we applied most of the old proverbs, we would lead almost perfect lives. However, knowledge isn't power until it is applied; and the purpose of this book is not to tell you something new. The purpose of this book is to remind you of what you already know and to kick you in the shins and inspire you to do something about applying it.

I have always admired a man like the late Fred Fuller Shedd, who had a gift for stating an old truth in a new and picturesque way. He was editor of the Philadelphia Bulletin; and, while addressing a college graduating class, he asked: "How many of you have ever sawed wood? Let's see your hands." Most of them had. Then he inquired: "How many of you have ever sawed sawdust?" No hands went up.

"Of course, you can't saw sawdust!" Mr. Shedd exclaimed. "It's already sawed! And it's the same with the past. When you start worrying about things that are over and done with, you're merely trying to saw sawdust."

When Connie Mack, the grand old man of baseball, was eighty-one years old, I asked him if he had ever worried over games that were lost.

"Oh, yes, I used to," Connie Mack told me. "But I got over that foolishness long years ago. I found out it didn't get me anywhere at all. You can't grind any grain," he said, "with water that has already gone down the creek."

No, you can't grind any grain-and you can't saw any logs with water that has already gone down the creek. But you can saw wrinkles in your face and ulcers in your stomach.

I had dinner with Jack Dempsey last Thanksgiving; and he told me over the turkey and cranberry sauce about the fight in which he lost the heavyweight championship to Tunney Naturally, it was a blow to his ego. "In the midst of that fight," he told me, "I suddenly realised I had become an old man. ... At the end of the tenth round, I was still on my feet, but that was about all. My face was puffed and cut, and my eyes were nearly closed. ... I saw the referee raise Gene Tunney's hand in token of victory. ... I was no longer champion of the world. I started back in the rain-back through the crowd to my dressing-room. As I passed, some people tried to grab my hand. Others had tears in their eyes.

"A year later, I fought Tunney again. But it was no use. I was through for ever. It was hard to keep from worrying about it all, but I said to myself: 'I'm not going to live in the

?How To Stop Worrying And Start Living? By Dale Carnegie 58

past or cry over spilt milk. I am going to take this blow on the chin and not let it floor me.'

"

And that is precisely what Jack Dempsey did. How? By saying to himself over and over:

"I won't worry about the past"? No, that would merely have forced him to think of his past worries. He did it by accepting and writing off his defeat and then concentrating on plans for the future. He did it by running the Jack Dempsey Restaurant on Broadway and the Great Northern Hotel on 57th Street. He did it by promoting prize fights and giving boxing exhibitions. He did it by getting so busy on something constructive that he had neither the time nor the temptation to worry about the past. "I have had a better time during the last ten years," Jack Dempsey said, "than I had when I was champion."

As I read history and biography and observe people under trying circumstances, I am constantly astonished and inspired by some people's ability to write off their worries and tragedies and go on living fairly happy lives.