Quit Your Worrying

Between twenty and thirty years ago I became involved in a series ofoccurrences and conditions of so painful and distressing a character that forover six months... » 

Between twenty and thirty years ago I became involved in a series ofoccurrences and conditions of so painful and distressing a character that forover six months I was unable to sleep more than one or two hours out of thetwentyfour. In common parlance I was worrying myself to death whenmercifully a total collapse of mind and body came. My physicians used thepolite euphemism of cerebral congestion to describe my state which inreality was one of temporary insanity and it seemed almost hopeless that Ishould ever recover my health and poise. For several months I hovered betweenlife and death and my brain between reason and unreason. In due time howeverboth health and mental poise came back in reasonable measure and I askedmyself what would be the result if I returned to the condition of worry thatculminated in the disaster. This question and my endeavors at its solution ledto the gaining of a degree of philosophy which materially changed my attitudetoward life. Though some of the chief causes of my past worry were removedthere were still enough adverse and untoward circumstances surrounding me togive me cause for worry if I allowed myself to yield to it so I concludedthat my mind must positively and absolutely be prohibited from dwelling uponthose things that seemed justification for worry. «