HOW TO STOP WORRYING AND START LIVING
Dale Carnegie
Published Pocket
Books Non Fiction
First Pocket
books printing May 1985 pp. xxv + 358
About the Author
CARNEGIE, DALE (1888-1955), was a pioneer in public
speaking and personality development. He became famous by showing others how to
become successful. His book How to Win Friends and Influence People
(1936) has sold more than 10 million copies and has been translated into many
languages. His books became popular because of his illustrative stories and simple,
well-phrased rules. Two of his most famous maxims are, "Believe that you
will succeed, and you will," and "Learn to love, respect and enjoy
other people." His other books include How to Stop Worrying and Start
Living (1948). Toward the beginning of his career, Carnegie wrote Public
Speaking and Influencing Men in Business (1931), which became a standard
text.
Carnegie
attended Warrensburg (Mo.)
State Teachers College, and became a salesman
for Armour and Company. Later, he taught public speaking to businessmen. He was
born in Mary ville, Mo.
About the
Book
The author has
encouraged the reader to develop a deep, driving desire to learn, a vigorous
determination to stop worrying and start living in very instance. He goes on to
illustrate that peace of mind, happiness, and health and perhaps income will,
in the long run, depend largely on this. We learn by doing is his maxim of life.
He shows that our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance,
but to do what lies clearly at hand. He states in several ways that 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. Though
he focuses on the present moment, he emphasizes that by all means we must take
thought for the tomorrow, yes, careful thought and planning and preparation
without anxiety. He explicitly states that good thinking deals with causes and
effects and leads to logical, constructive planning, while bad thinking
frequently leads to tension and nervous breakdowns. He is practical in his
endeavour to cite that ‘Today well lived makes yesterday a dream of happiness
and every tomorrow a vision of hope’.
FUNDAMENTAL FACTS YOU
SHOULD KNOW ABOUT WORRY:
- Shut off the past! Let the dead past bury its dead.
Shut off the future as tightly as the past. The future is today. Live in
day-tight compartments.
- Anti-Worry Technique – III steps
i.
The worst that could possibly happen
ii.
Accepting the worst that could possibly happen, if
necessary.
iii.
Improve upon the worst which I accept mentally
- Those who do not know how to fight worry die young.
Just as how
practical it may sound, it is inevitably difficult to accept what has happened so
as to make the first step in overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.
However, as any
philosopher would agree true peace of mind comes from accepting the worst. The
ready formula is to face the facts. Quit worrying, and then do something about
it.
- THREE BASIC TECHNIQUES IN ANALYZING WORRY:
- Get the facts.
- Analyze the facts.
- Arrive at a decision. – and then act on that
decision
- Answer the following questions:
i.
What is the problem?
ii.
What is the cause of the problem?
iii.
What are all possible solutions?
iv.
What is the best solution?
Confusion is the
chief cause of worry according to the book. He has suggested a way to kill
confusion by getting facts in an impartial, objective way. Thus, the worries
will usually evaporate in the light of knowledge. He states that, everything
that is in agreement with our personal desires seems true, but everything that
is not puts us into a rage. When trying to get the facts, eliminate my emotions
by presuming that one is collecting this information for some other person or pretend
that one is a lawyer and gets facts against myself. He has suggested the following
time-tested four steps to banishing worries:
Write
down, “What I am worrying about?”
Write
down, “What can I do about it?
Decide
what to do?
Start
immediately to carry out that decision
He has explored one of the most fundamental
laws ever revealed by psychology, which is that, it is utterly impossible for
any human mind, no matter how brilliant, to think of more than ‘one thing’ at
any given time. The same thing is true about emotions, as he has found out. He
reveals that the secret of being miserable is to have the leisure to bother
about whether you are happy or not.
- HOW TO BREAK THE WORRY HABIT BEFORE IT BREAKS YOU?
- Keep busy. The worried person must lose himself in
action, lest he wither in despair.
- 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?”
- Cooperate with the inevitable.
- Whenever we are tempted to throw good money after
bad in terms of human living, let’s stop and ask ourselves these three
questions:
i.
How much this thing I am worrying about really matters
to me?
ii.
At what point shall I set a “stop-loss” order on this
worry - and forget it?
iii.
Exactly how much shall I pay for this whistle? Have I
already paid more than it is worth?
- Don’t saw the saw-dust.
He has developed
a novel prayer that one should neither cry for the moon nor over spilt milk. As
he aptly puts it, a good supply of resignation is of the first importance in
providing for the journey of life. When I can’t handle events, I let them
handle themselves, according to his book. He advises us to either bend with the
inevitable sleet storms of life – or to resist them and break! An interesting
anecdote shared is, “The Moving Finger writes; and having writ, Moves on: nor
all your Piety, nor Wit shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, nor all your
Tears wash out a Word of it.”
- SEVEN WAYS TO CULTIVATE A MENTAL ATTITUDE THAT WILL
BRING YOU PEACE AND HAPPINESS:
- Think and act cheerfully, and you will feel
cheerful.
- Let’s never try to get even with our enemies,
because if we do we will hurt ourselves far more than we hurt them. Let’s
do as General Eisenhower does: Let’s never waste a minute thinking about
people we don’t like.
- Instead of worrying about ingratitude, let’s expect
it.
i.
Let’s remember that Jesus helped ten lepers in one day
– and only one thanked Him Why should we expect more gratitude than Jesus got?
ii.
Let’s remember that the only way to find happiness is
not to expect gratitude, but to give for the joy of giving.
iii.
Let’s remember that gratitude is a “cultivated” trait;
so if we want our children to be grateful, we must train them to be grateful.
- Count your blessings – not your troubles!
- Let’s not imitate others. Let’s find ourselves and
be ourselves.
- When fate hands us a lemon, let’s try to make lemonade.
- Forget yourself by becoming interested in others.
Every day do a good deed that will put a smile of joy on someone’s face.
The famous line,
“I had the blues because I had no shoes, until upon the street; I met a man who
had no feet.” has been proved to be inspiring, time and again, by the author.
He states that nobody is as miserable as he who longs to be somebody and
something other than the person he is in body and mind. It is like how one’s
perspective differs like the two men who looked out from prison bars, one saw
the mud, the other saw the stars. He emphasizes that we must always remember
that it takes a bigger man to walk away from a fight than it does to stay and
fight. Service must be the root of mankind. His prescription, ‘Try to think
everyday how you can please someone.’ is a guaranteed cure of worry syndrome in
fourteen days. As imbibed from life, all that we demand of a human being, and
the highest praise we can give him, is that he should be a good fellow worker,
a friend to all other men, and a true partner in love and marriage. Man is not
made to understand life, but to live it. He exhorts religious beliefs as more
effective than atheism. Anyone who is truly religious does not develop a
neurosis is his study.
Prayer fulfills
these three very basic psychological needs:
Prayer
helps us to put into words exactly what is troubling us.
Prayer
gives us a sense of sharing our burdens, of not being alone.
Prayer
puts into force an active principle of ‘doing’. It’s a first step towards
‘action’.
- HOW TO KEEP FROM WORRYING ABOUT CRITICISM?
- Remember that unjust criticism is often a disguised
compliment. It means that you have aroused jealousy and envy. Remember
that no one ever kicks a dead dog.
- Do the very best you can; and then put up your old
umbrella and keep the rain of criticism from running down the back of
your neck.
- Let’s keep a record of the fool things we have done
and criticize ourselves. Since we can’t hope to be perfect, let’s ask for
unbiased, helpful, constructive criticism.
An interesting
fact he administers throughout the book is to do what you feel in your heart to
be right – for you’ll be criticized anyway. He rests the blame of our falls on
us. He has quoted an example of Lincoln, who welcomed criticism when he knew it
was sincere, founded on knowledge, and given in a spirit of helpfulness.
Rest often and Rest
before you get tired is a way to avoid worry. Relaxation is the absence of all
tension and effort as he has discovered. Also basically, talking one’s troubles
with someone one can trust is important. He advises reading, ignoring faults of
others, interest in people, proper planning and relaxation as a technique to
banish worry.
He has suggested
some relaxation exercises for your looks and disposition:
- SIX WAYS TO PREVENT FATIGUE & WORRY AND KEEP YOUR ENERGY AND SPIRITS
HIGH:
- Rest before
you get tired.
- Learn to relax at your work
- Learn to relax at home.
- Apply these four good working habits:
i.
Clear your desk of all papers except those relating to
the immediate problem at hand.
ii.
Do things in the order of their importance.
iii.
When you face a problem, solve it then and there, if you
have the facts necessary to make a decision.
iv.
Learn to organize, deputize and supervise.
- To prevent worry and fatigue, put enthusiasm into
your work.
- Remember no one was ever killed by lack of sleep.
It is worrying about insomnia that does the damage – not the insomnia.
Finally, our
life is what our thoughts make it. God created you and all your actions.
I stood
yesterday. I can stand today. And I will not permit myself to think about what
‘might’ happen tomorrow. He mentions that, nothing is important, but one’s
health and Time solves a lot of things.
