How to Stop Worrying and Start Living

Try to think every day how you can please someone.”

Why will doing a good deed every day produce such astounding efforts on the doer? Because trying to please others will cause us to stop thinking of ourselves:

That experience showed me again the necessity of making other people happy in order to be happy ourselves.

“About one-third of my patients are suffering from no clinically definable neurosis, but from the senselessness and emptiness of their lives.”

they are trying to thumb a ride through life—and the parade passes them by. So they rush to a psychiatrist with their petty, senseless, useless lives. Having missed the boat, they stand on the wharf, blaming everyone except themselves and demanding that the world cater to their self-centred desires.

you surely meet some people every day of your life. What do you do about them? Do you merely stare through them, or do you try to find out what it is that makes them tick?

Zoroaster said: “Doing good to others is not a duty. It is a joy, for it increases your own health and happiness.”

What people want,” continued Professor Phelps, “is a little attention as human beings.

“Man is not made to understand life, but to live it.”

The wrong kind of fear is a sin—a sin against your health, a sin against the richer, fuller, happier, courageous life

The blackest moments we live through can only last a little time—and then comes the future.

instead of going around in frightening circles of worry, I tried to think constructively. How bad was my situation? Couldn’t it be worse? Was it really hopeless? What could I do to make it better?

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. Few of us are so strong that we can bear our heaviest burdens, our most agonising troubles, all by ourselves. Sometimes our worries are of so intimate a nature that we cannot discuss them even with our closest relatives or friends. Then prayer is the answer.

the more important a dog is, the more satisfaction people get in kicking him.

So when you are kicked and criticised, remember that it is often done because it gives the kicker a feeling of importance. It often means that you are accomplishing something and are worthy of attention.

Remember that unjust criticism is often a
disguised compliment.
Remember that no one ever kicks a dead dog.

I realise now that people are not thinking about you and me or caring what is said about us. They are thinking about themselves — before breakfast, after breakfast, and right on until ten minutes past midnight. They would be a thousand times more concerned about a slight headache of their own than they would about the news of your death or mine.

I could determine whether I would let the unjust condemnation disturb me.

“If you get your head above the crowd, you’re going to be criticised. So get used to the idea.