Exactly fifty years ago my father gave me the words I have lived by ever since. He was
a physician. I had just started to study law at the Budapest University. I failed one
examination. I thought I could not survive the shame so I sought escape in the
consolation of failure's closest friend, alcohol, always at hand: apricot brandy to be
exact.
My father called on me unexpectedly. Like a good doctor, he discovered both the trouble
and the bottle, in a second. I confessed why I had to escape reality.
The dear old man then and there improvised a prescription. He explained to me that
there can be no real escape in alcohol or sleeping pills-or in any drug. For any sorrow
there is only one medicine, better and more reliable than all the drugs in the world: work!
How right my father was! Getting used to work might be hard. Sooner or later you
succeed. It has, of course, the quality of all the narcotics. It becomes habit-forming. And
once the habit is formed, sooner or later, it becomes impossible to break one's self of it.
I have never been able to break myself of the habit for fifty years.
[*] Reprinted with permission of the author, from Words to Live By-A Little Treasury of
Inspiration and Wisdom, published by Simon and Schuster, Inc., copyright, 1947, by
William Nichols.
I Was So Worried I Didn't Eat A Bite Of Solid Food For Eighteen Days
By
Kathryne Holcombe Farmer
Sheriff's Office, Mobile, Alabama
Three months ago, I was so worried that I didn't sleep for four days and nights; and I did
not eat a bite of solid food for eighteen days. Even the smell of food made me violently
sick. I cannot find words to describe the mental anguish I endured. I wonder whether
hell has any worse tortures than what I went through. I felt as if I would go insane or die.
I knew that I couldn't possibly continue living as I was.
The turning point of my life was the day I was given an advance copy of this book.
During the last three months, I have practically lived with this book, studying every page,
desperately trying to find a new way of life. The change that has occurred in my mental
outlook and emotional stability is almost unbelievable. I am now able to endure the
battles of each passing day. I now realise that in the past, I was being driven half mad
not by today's problems but by the bitterness and anxiety over something that had
happened yesterday or that I feared might happen tomorrow.
But now, when I find myself starting to worry about anything, I immediately stop and
start to apply some of the principles I learned from studying this book. If I am tempted to
tense up over something that must be done today, I get busy and do it immediately and
get it off my mind.
When I am faced with the kind of problems that used to drive me half crazy, I now
calmly set about trying to apply the three steps outlined in Chapter 2, Part One. First, I
ask myself what is the worst that can possibly happen. Second, I try to accept it