More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Our trouble is not ignorance, but inaction.
a deep, driving desire to learn, a vigorous determination to stop worrying and start living.
After reading it thoroughly, you ought to spend a few hours reviewing it every month.
Learning is an active process.
Apply these rules at every opportunity.
That will require time and persistence and daily application.
living in “day-tight compartments.”
Shut off the future as tightly as the past.... The future is today.... There is no tomorrow. The day of man’s salvation is now. Waste of energy, mental distress, nervous worries dog the steps of a man who is anxious about the future.... Shut close,
best possible way to prepare for tomorrow is to concentrate with all your intelligence, all your enthusiasm, on doing today’s work superbly today.
“Have no anxiety for the tomorrow.”
good thinking deals with causes and effects and leads to logical, constructive planning; bad thinking frequently leads to tension and nervous breakdowns.
know now that I can live one day at a time—and that ‘Every day is a new life to a wise man.’”
Life, we learn too late, is in the living, in the tissue of every day and hour.”
common sense reminded me that worry wasn’t getting me anywhere;
worst features about worrying is that it destroys our ability to concentrate.
lose all power of decision.
acceptance of what has happened is the first step in overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.”
“Fear causes worry. Worry makes you tense and nervous and affects the nerves of your stomach and actually changes the gastric juices of your stomach from normal to abnormal and often leads to stomach ulcers.”
What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world—and loses his health?
We have inner resources that we have probably never tapped. Thoreau said in his immortal book, Walden.
But I do believe that a cheerful mental attitude helps the body fight disease. At
‘Face the facts: Quit worrying; then do something about it!’”
“Those who do not know how to fight worry die young.”
Without the facts, all we can do is stew around in confusion.
“confusion is the chief cause of worry.”
“that if a man will devote his time to securing facts in an impartial, objective way, his worries will usually evaporate in the light of knowledge.”
When we are worried, our emotions are riding high.
Then I write down both my side of the case and the other side of the case—and I generally find that the truth lies somewhere in between these two extremities.
Charles Kettering puts it: “A problem well stated is a problem half solved.”
“1. What am I worrying about? “2. What can I do about it?
It is the failure to arrive at a fixed purpose, the inability to stop going round and round in maddening circles, that drives men to nervous breakdowns and living hells. I
Do something about it. Unless we carry out our action, all our fact-finding and analysis is whistling upwind—it’s a sheer waste of energy.
“When once a decision is reached and execution is the order of the day, dismiss absolutely all responsibility and care about the outcome.”
He meant, once you have made a careful decision based on facts, go into action. Don’t stop to reconsider. Don’t begin to hesitate, worry and retrace your steps. Don’t lose yourself in self-doubting which begets other doubts. Don’t keep looking back over your shoulder.
“I find that to keep thinking about our problems beyond a certain point is bound to create confusion and worry. There comes a time when any more investigation and thinking are harmful. There comes a time when we must decide and act and never look back.”
until analyzing the problem gave him a boost on the road to success.
I realized that it is difficult to worry while you are busy doing something that requires planning and thinking.
Besides, I have filled my life with stimulating activities.
No time for worry!
“I’m too busy. I have no time for worry.”
that it is utterly impossible for any human mind, no matter how brilliant to think of more than one thing at any given time.
Nature also rushes in to fill the vacant mind. With what? Usually with emotions. Why? Because emotions of worry, fear, hate, jealousy, and envy are driven by primeval vigor and the dynamic energy of the jungle. Such emotions are so violent that they tend to drive out of our minds all peaceful, happy thoughts and emotions.
“your mind is like a motor operating without its load. It races and threatens to burn out its bearings or even to tear itself to bits. The remedy for worry is to get completely occupied doing something constructive.”
“Without purpose, the days would have ended, as such days always end, in disintegration.’’
Worry is a habit and I had that habit.
“The secret of being miserable is to have the leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not.”
Keep busy. The worried person must lose himself in action, lest he wither in despair.
Aren’t we all like that battling giant of the forest? Don’t we manage somehow to survive the rare storms and avalanches and lightning blasts of life? Let our hearts be eaten out by little beetles of worry—little beetles that could be crushed between a finger and a thumb.
Let’s not allow ourselves to be upset by small things we should despise and forget. Remember “Life is too short to be little.” ***
I gradually discovered that ninety-nine percent of the things I worried about never happened.
