How to Stop Worrying and Start Living

Writing down precisely what I am worrying about. Writing down what I can do about it. Deciding what to do. Starting immediately to carry out that decision

once you have made a careful decision based on facts, go into action. Don’t stop to reconsider.

“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.”

everyone who wishes to present a problem to me must first prepare and submit a memorandum answering these four questions: Question 1: What is the problem? (“In the old days we used to spend an hour or two in a worried conference without anyone’s knowing specifically and concretely what the real problem was. We used to work ourselves into a lather discussing our troubles without ever troubling to write out specifically what our problem was.) Question 2: What is the cause of the problem? (“As I look back over my career, I am appalled at the wasted hours I have spent in worried conferences without ever trying to find out clearly the conditions which lay at the root of the problem.) Question 3: What are all possible solutions of the problem? (“In the old days, one man in the conference would suggest one solution. Someone else would argue with him. Tempers would flare. We would often get clear off the subject, and at the end of the conference no one would have written down all the various things we could do to attack the problem.) Question 4: What solution do you suggest? (“I used to go into a conference with a man who had spent hours worrying about a situation and going around in circles without ever once thinking through all possible solutions and then writing down: This is the solution I recommend.”)

“My associates rarely come to me now with their problems. Why? Because they have discovered that in order to answer these four questions they have to get all the facts and think their problems through. And after they have done that they find, in three-fourths of the cases, they don’t have to consult me at all, because the proper solution has popped out like a piece of bread popping out from an electric toaster. Even in those cases where consultation is necessary, the discussion takes about one-third the time formerly required, because it proceeds along an orderly, logical path to a reasoned conclusion.

Part Two in a Nutshell Basic Techniques in Analyzing Worry RULE 1: Get the facts. Remember that Dean Hawkes of Columbia University said that “ half the worry in the world is caused by people trying to make decisions before they have sufficient knowledge on which to base a decision.” RULE 2: After carefully weighing all the facts, come to a decision. RULE 3: Once a decision is carefully reached, act! Get busy carrying out your decision—and dismiss all anxiety about the outcome. RULE 4: When you, or any of your associates are tempted to worry about a problem, write out and answer the following questions: What is the problem? What is the cause of the problem? What are all possible solutions? What is the best solution?

Winston Churchill said when he was working eighteen hours a day at the height of the war. When he was asked if he worried about his tremendous responsibilities, he said: “I’m too busy. I have no time for worry.”

Research men rarely have nervous breakdowns. They haven’t time for such luxuries.

that it is utterly impossible for any human mind, no matter how brilliant, to think of more than one thing at any given time.

Well, the same thing is true in the field of emotions. We cannot be pepped up and enthusiastic about doing something exciting and feel dragged down by worry at the very same time. One kind of emotion drives out the other.

“Occupational therapy” is the term now used by psychiatry when work is prescribed as though it were a medicine.

Nature also rushes in to fill the vacant mind. With what? Usually with emotions.

George Bernard Shaw was right. He summed it all up when he said: “The secret of being miserable is to have the leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not.”

To break the worry habit, here is Rule 1: Keep busy. The worried person must lose himself in action, lest be wither in despair.

We often face the major disasters of life bravely—and then let the trifles, the “pains in the neck”, get us down.

“Trivialities are at the bottom of most marital unhappiness”;

Why did this stupid mistake have to spoil my whole evening?’ Then I thought—well—why let it?

“And so it is with many petty worries. We dislike them and get into a stew, all because we exaggerate their importance.

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 worthwhile actions and feelings, to great thoughts, real affections and enduring undertakings. For life is too short to be little.”