Free How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie

new habits. Ah yes, you are attempting a new way of life. That will require time and persistence and daily application.

    So refer to these pages often. Regard this as a working handbook on conquering worry; and when you are confronted with some trying problem-don't get all stirred up. Don't do the natural thing, the impulsive thing. That is usually wrong.

    Instead, turn to these pages and review the paragraphs you have underscored. Then try these new ways and watch, them achieve magic for you.

    7. Offer your wife a shilling every time she catches you violating one of the principles advocated in this book. She will break you!

    8. Please turn to pages 193-4 of this book and read how the Wall Street banker, H.P. Howell, and old Ben Franklin corrected their mistakes. Why don't you use the Howell and Franklin techniques to check up on your application of the principles discussed in this book? If you do, two things will result.

    First, you will find yourself engaged in an educational process that is both intriguing and priceless.

    Second, you will find that your ability to stop worrying and start living will grow and spread like a green bay tree.

    9. Keep a diary-a diary in which you ought to record your triumphs in the application of these principles. Be specific. Give names, dates, results. Keeping such a record will inspire you to greater efforts; and how fascinating these entries will be when you chance upon them some evening, years from now!

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    In A Nutshell

    1. Develop a deep, driving desire to master the principles of conquering worry.
    2. Read each chapter twice before going on to the next one.
    3. As you read, stop frequently to ask yourself how you can apply each suggestion.
    4. Underscore each important idea.
    5. Review this book each month.
    6. Apply these principles at every opportunity. Use this volume as a working handbook to help you solve your daily problems.
    7. Make a lively game put of your learning by offering some friend a shilling every time he catches you violating one of these principles.
    8. Check up each week on the progress you are making. Ask yourself what mistakes you have made, what improvement, what lessons you have learned for the future.
    9. Keep a diary in the back of this book showing how and when you have applied these principles.

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    Part Three - How To Break The Worry Habit Before It Breaks You

    Chapter 6 - How To Crowd Worry Out Of Tour Mind

    I shall never forget the night, a few years ago, when Marion J. Douglas was a student in one of my classes. (I have not used his real name. He requested me, for personal reasons, not to reveal his identity.) But here is his real story as he told it before one of our adult-education classes. He told us how tragedy had struck at his home, not once, but twice. The first time he had lost his five-year-old daughter, a child he adored. He and his wife thought they couldn't endure that first loss; but, as he said: "Ten months later, God gave us another little girl-and she died in five days."

    This double bereavement was almost too much to bear. "I couldn't take it," this father told us. "I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat, I couldn't rest or relax. My nerves were utterly shaken and my confidence gone." At last he went to doctors; one recommended sleeping pills and another recommended a trip. He tried both, but neither remedy helped. He said: "My body felt as if it were encased in a vice, and the jaws of the vice were being drawn tighter and tighter." The tension of grief-if you have ever been paralysed by sorrow, you know what he meant.

    "But thank God, I had one child left-a four-year-old son. He gave me the solution to my problem. One afternoon as I sat around feeling sorry for myself, he asked: 'Daddy, will you build a boat for me?' I was in no mood to build a boat; in fact, I was in no mood to do anything. But my son is a persistent little fellow! I had to give in.

    "Building that toy boat took about