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Our trouble is not ignorance, but inaction.
‘Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.’
the best possible way to prepare for tomorrow is to concentrate with all your intelligence, all your enthusiasm, on doing today’s work superbly today. That is the only possible way you can prepare for the future.
‘Take therefore no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’
Whether in war or peace, the chief difference between good thinking and bad thinking is this: good thinking deals with causes and effects and leads to logical, constructive planning; bad thinking frequently leads to tension and nervous breakdowns.
“I want you to think of your life as an hourglass. You know there are thousands of grains of sand in the top of the hourglass; and they all pass slowly and evenly through the narrow neck in the middle. Nothing you or I could do would make more than one grain of sand pass through this narrow neck without impairing the hourglass. You and I and everyone else are like this hourglass. When we start in the morning, there are hundreds of tasks which we feel that we must accomplish that day, hut if we do not take them one at a time and let them pass through the day slowly and evenly, as do the grains
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“One grain of sand at a time. One task at a time.”
‘Anyone can carry his burden, however hard, until nightfall,’ wrote Robert Louis Stevenson. ‘Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day. Anyone can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, purely, till the sun goes down. And this is all that life really means.’
“Every day is a new life to a wise man.”’
‘How strange it is, our little procession of life!’ wrote Stephen Leacock. ‘The child says, “When I am a big boy.” But what is that? The big boy says, “When I grow up.” And then, grown up, he says, “When I get married.” But to be married, what is that after all? The thought changes to “When I’m able to retire.” And then, when retirement comes, he looks back over the landscape traversed; a cold wind seems to sweep over it; somehow he has missed it all, and it is gone. Life, we learn too late, is
White Queen said: ‘The rule is jam tomorrow and jam yesterday but never jam today.’
SALUTATION TO THE DAWN Look to this day! For it is life, the very life of life. In its brief course Lie all the verities and realities of your existence: The bliss of growth The glory of action The splendor of beauty, For yesterday is but a dream And tomorrow is only a vision, But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness And every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well, therefore, to this day! Such is the salutation to the dawn.
Shut the iron doors on the past and the future. Live in Day-tight Compartments.
‘Step I. I analyzed the situation fearlessly and honestly and figured out what was the worst that could possibly happen as a result of this failure.
‘Step II. After figuring out what was the worst that could possibly happen, I reconciled myself to accepting it, if necessary.
‘Step III. From that time on, I calmly devoted my time and energy to trying to improve upon the worst which I had already accepted mentally.
‘You do not get stomach ulcers from what you eat. You get ulcers from what is eating you.’
Plato said that ‘the greatest mistake physicians make is that they attempt to cure the body without attempting to cure the mind; yet the mind and body are one and should not be treated separately!’
RELAXATION AND RECREATION The most relaxing recreating forces are a healthy religion, sleep, music, and laughter. Have faith in God – learn to sleep well – Love good music – see the funny side of life – And health and happiness will be yours.
‘The Lord may forgive us our sins,’ said William James, ‘but the nervous system never does.’
Dr Alexis Carrel again: He said, ‘Those who keep the peace of their inner selves in the midst of the tumult of the modern city are immune from nervous diseases.’
‘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.
As André Maurois put it: ‘Everything that is in agreement with our personal desires seems true. Everything that is not puts us into a rage.’
When trying to get the facts, I pretend that I am collecting this information not for myself, but for some other person. This helps me to take a cold, impartial view of the evidence. This helps me eliminate my emotions. While trying to collect the facts about the problem that is worrying me, I sometimes pretend that I am a lawyer preparing to argue the other side of the issue. In other words, I try to get all the facts against myself – all the facts that are damaging to my wishes, all the facts I don’t like to face.
‘So I banish about ninety per cent of my worries by taking these four steps: ‘1. Writing down precisely what I am worrying about. ‘2. Writing down what I can do about it. ‘3. Deciding what to do. ‘4. Starting immediately to carry out that decision.’
William James said this: ‘When once a decision is reached and execution is the order of the day, dismiss absolutely all responsibility and care about the outcome.’
up. He was on the point of admitting failure – until analyzing the problem gave him a boost on the road to success. Can you apply these questions to your business problems? To repeat my challenge – they can reduce your worries by fifty per cent. Here they are again:
Arthur Hallam, ‘I must lose myself in action, lest I wither in despair.’
When we are not busy, our minds tend to become a near-vacuum. Every student of physics knows that ‘nature abhors a vacuum.’ The nearest thing to a vacuum that you and I will probably ever see is the inside of an incandescent electric-light bulb. Break that bulb – and nature forces air in to fill the theoretically empty space.
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.
‘Worry is most apt to ride you ragged not when you are in action, but when the day’s work is done. Your imagination can run riot then and bring up all sorts of ridiculous possibilities and magnify each little blunder. At such a time,’ he continued, ‘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.’
‘The secret of being miserable is to have the leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not.’
A well-known legal maxim says: De minimis non curat lex – ‘the law does not concern itself with trifles.’ And neither should the worrier – if he wants peace of mind.
Disraeli said: ‘Life is too short to be little.’ ‘Those words,’ said André Maurois in This Week magazine, ‘have helped me through many a painful experience: often we allow ourselves to be upset by small things we should despise and forget … Here we are on this earth, with only a few more decades to live, and we lose many irreplaceable hours brooding over grievances that, in a year’s time, will be forgotten by us and by everybody. No, let us devote our life to worth-while actions and feelings, to great thoughts, real affections and enduring undertakings. For life is too short to be little.’
Let’s not allow ourselves to be upset by small things we should despise and forget. Remember ‘Life is too short to be little.’
‘Let’s examine the record.’ Let’s ask ourselves: ‘What are the chances, according to the law of averages, that this event I am worrying about will ever occur?’
‘It is so. It cannot be otherwise.’
For every ailment under the sun, There is a remedy, or there is none; If there be one, try to find it; If there be none, never mind it.
God grant me the serenity To accept the things I cannot change, The courage to change the things I can; And the wisdom to know the difference.
‘The cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life, which is required to be exchanged for it immediately or in the long run.’
Lincoln said: ‘You have more of a feeling of personal resentment than I have. Perhaps I have too little of it; but I never thought it paid. A man doesn’t have the time to spend half his life in quarrels. If any man ceases to attack me, I never remember the past against him.’
Whenever we are tempted to throw good money after bad in terms of human living, let’s stop and ask ourselves these three questions: 1. How much does this thing I am worrying about really matter to me? 2. At what point shall I set a ‘stop-loss’ order on this worry – and forget it? 3. Exactly how much shall I pay for this whistle? Have I already paid more than it is worth?
Shakespeare’s advice: ‘Wise men ne’er sit and wail their loss, but cheerily seek how to redress their harms.’
Don’t try to saw sawdust.
Emerson said: ‘A man is what he thinks about all day long.’
‘Our life is what our thoughts make it.’
‘You are not,’ said Norman Vincent Peale, ‘you are not what you think you are; but what you think, you are.’
“He who conquers his spirit is mightier than he who taketh a city.”
Life is much fuller and friendlier. I believe I appreciate the true values of life now. When moments of uneasiness try to creep in (as they will in everyone’s life) I tell myself to get that camera back in focus, and everything is OK.
The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heaven of Hell, a hell of Heaven.
