More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
“Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.”
‘Every day is a new life to a wise man.’ I typed that sentence out and pasted it on the windshield of my car, where I saw it every minute I was driving. I found it wasn’t so hard to live only one day at a time. I learned to forget the yesterdays and to not think of the tomorrows. Each morning I said to myself: ‘Today is a new life.’
One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today. Why are we such fools—such tragic fools?
The only certainty is today. Why mar the beauty of living today by trying to solve the problems of a future that is shrouded in ceaseless change and uncertainty—a future that no one can possibly foretell?
“Step I. I analysed the situation fearlessly and honestly and figured out what was the worst that could possibly happen as a result of this failure. No one was going to jail me or shoot me. That was certain.
“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.
Acceptance of what has happened is the first step in overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.”
Ask yourself, “What is the worst that can possibly happen?” Prepare to accept it if you have to. Then calmly proceed to improve on the worst.
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.
“Businessmen who do not know how to fight worry die young.”
“Those who keep the peace of their inner selves in the midst of the tumult of the modern city are immune from nervous diseases.”
What am I worrying about? What can I do about it?
“Experience has proved to me, time after time, the enormous value of arriving at a decision. 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 find that fifty per cent of my worries vanishes once I arrive at a clear, definite decision; and another forty per cent usually vanishes once I start to carry out that decision.
What is the problem? What is the CAUSE of the problem? What are all possible solutions to the problem? What solution do you suggest?
“That discovery jarred me out of my lethargy and caused me to do a bit of thinking—the first real thinking I had done in months. I realised that it is difficult to worry while you are busy doing something that requires planning and thinking. In my case, building the boat had knocked worry out of the ring. So I resolved to keep busy.
“I’m too busy. I have no time for worry.”
“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 continues, “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.”
“It was wonderful,” he says, “to be able to dole out time in this way. It brought me an extraordinary sense of command over myself. . . .” And he adds: “Without that or an equivalent, the days would have been without purpose; and without purpose they would have ended, as such days always end, in disintegration.”
“The secret of being miserable is to have the leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not.”
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 worthwhile actions and feelings, to great thoughts, real affections and enduring undertakings. For life is too short to be little.”
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, only to let our hearts be eaten out by little beetles of worry—little beetles that could be crushed between a finger and a thumb?
“By the law of averages, it won’t happen.’
We can either accept them as inevitable and adjust ourselves to them, or we can ruin our lives with rebellion and maybe end up with a nervous breakdown.
“When I am up against a tough situation, if I can do anything about it, I do it. If I can’t, I just forget it. I never worry about the future, because I know no man living can possibly figure out what is going to happen in the future. There are so many forces that will affect that future! Nobody can tell what prompts those forces—or understand them. So why worry about them?”
“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.”
“A political victory, a rise in rents, the recovery of your sick, or the return of your absent friend, or some other quite external event, raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for you. Do not believe it. It can never be so. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.”
“The sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if your cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there.”
“If selfish people try to take advantage of you, cross them off your list, but don’t try to get even. When you try to get even, you hurt yourself more than you hurt the other fellow”? …
Even if we can’t love our enemies, let’s at least love ourselves. Let’s love ourselves so much that we won’t permit our enemies to control our happiness, our health and our looks.
So instead of hating our enemies, let’s pity them and thank God that life has not made us what they are. Instead of heaping condemnation and revenge upon our enemies, let’s give them our understanding, our sympathy, our help, our forgiveness, and our prayers.”
It is natural for people to forget to be grateful; so, if we go around expecting gratitude, we are headed straight for a lot of heartaches.
If we want to find happiness, let’s stop thinking about gratitude or ingratitude and give for the inner joy of giving.
You and I ought to be ashamed of ourselves. All the days of our years we have been living in a fairyland of beauty, but we have been too blind to see, too satiated to enjoy.
“Nobody is so miserable as he who longs to be somebody and something other than the person he is in body and mind.”
Forget yourself by becoming interested in others. Do every day a good deed that will put a smile of joy on someone’s face.
“Man is not made to understand life, but to live it.”
Was Alice really and honestly tired eight hours earlier, when she looked and acted exhausted? Sure she was. She was exhausted because she was bored with her work, perhaps bored with life. There are millions of Alices. You may be one of them.
Remind yourself that it may double the amount of happiness you get out of life, for you spend about one half of your waking hours at your work, and if you don’t find happiness in your work, you may never find it anywhere.
I can’t help you. No one can help you, because you have brought this thing on yourself. Go to bed at night, and if you can’t fall asleep, forget all about it. Just say to yourself: “I don’t care a hang if I don’t go to sleep. It’s all right with me if I lie awake till morning.” Keep your eyes closed and say: “As long as I just lie still and don’t worry about it, I’ll be getting rest, anyway.”
Remember that no one was ever killed by lack of sleep. Worrying about insomnia usually causes far more damage than sleeplessness.
I think no one else is so much to be pitied as the person who gets nothing at all out of his work but his pay.
Remember, today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. Ask yourself: How do I KNOW this thing I am worrying about will really come to pass?
I have learned not to expect too much of people, and so I can still get happiness out of the friend who isn’t quite true to me or the acquaintance who gossips. Above all, I have acquired a sense of humour, because there were so many things over which I had either to cry or laugh. And when a woman can joke over her troubles instead of having hysterics, nothing can ever hurt her much again. I do not regret the hardships I have known, because through them I have touched life at every point I have lived. And it was worth the price I had to pay.
No man can worry while he is playing squash tennis or skiing. He is too busy to worry. The large mental mountains of trouble become minute molehills that new thoughts and acts quickly smooth down.
