Chapter 13 don't go sawdust

The only way to make past mistakes worthwhile is to dispassionately analyze our past mistakes, learn from them, and then forget them. As I write this sentence, I can see through the window some dinosaur tracks left on large flagstones and stones in the yard outside the window.I paid for them from the Peet Museum at Yale University.I also keep a letter from the director of the Peeth Museum saying that the footprints were there 180 million years ago.I don't think even an idiot would want to go back 180 million years and change those footprints.And one person's worrying is just as stupid as this idea, because even if it happened 180 seconds ago, we can't go back and correct it, but there are many of us who are doing similar things.More precisely, we can find ways to change the impact of something that happened 180 seconds ago, but it is absolutely impossible to change what happened then.

The only way to make past mistakes worthwhile is to dispassionately analyze our past mistakes, learn from them, and then forget them. I know this sentence is very reasonable, but have I always had the courage and thought to practice it like this?To answer this question, let me tell you about an amazing experience I had a few years ago in which I let over $30 slip through my fingers without making a cent of profit.That's what happened: I started a very large adult education tutoring class, with branches in many cities, and I spent a lot of money on organization and publicity.I was busy teaching, so I had neither the time nor the mood to manage finances, and I was too naive to know that I should find a good business manager to manage all expenses.

Finally, after nearly a year, I discovered something that was clear, obvious, and startling: While we were making good money, we weren't making any profits.Immediately after discovering this, I should have set out to do two things: Number one, I should have had the brains to learn from George Washington Carver, a black scientist whose bank failed—his $50,000 in savings, his life savings gone.When asked if he knew he was broke, he replied, "Yes, I've heard of it," and continued teaching.He blotted the loss from his mind and never brought it up again. The second thing I should do is analyze the mistakes I made and learn from them.

But frankly, I did neither of those things.Instead, I started to worry.For months I was in a trance, slept restlessly, lost a lot of weight, and instead of learning from this big mistake, I made the same mistake on a smaller scale. It is embarrassing for me to admit to such stupidity.But I discovered a truth early on: "It's much easier to teach 20 people how to do it than to do it by yourself." I wish I could have been Paul Brandwell's student at George Washington High School in New York.The teacher had taught Aaron Sanders, who lived in the Bronx, New York City. Mr. Saunders told me that Dr. Paul Brandwell, the teacher who taught his physiology and hygiene class, taught him the most valuable lesson in his life.

Aaron Sanders told me: "I was only a teenager at the time, but I used to worry about a lot of things. I used to blame myself for all the mistakes I made. After I handed in the test papers, I often would stay up in the middle of the night biting my nails and worrying that I wouldn't pass. I'd always be thinking about the things I'd done that I wished I hadn't done; I'd always be thinking about the things I'd said, Wish I could have said those words better then. "One morning we all walked into the lab for our lab class. Our teacher, Dr. Paul Brandwell, put a bottle of milk on the edge of the table. We all sat down, looked at the bottle of milk, and wondered What does this have to do with the physiology class he taught. At this moment, Dr. Paul Brandwell stood up suddenly, smashed the bottle of milk in the sink with his palm. Then, he shouted: "Don't worry about it." Spilled milk weeps.'

"Then he told us all to go over to the sink and take a good look at the bottle of milk that was broken. 'Take a good look,' he told us, 'because I want you to learn this lesson for the rest of your life. , the bottle of milk is gone - you can see it's leaking out, no matter how much you worry and complain, there's no way to save another drop. Just use a little mind first, take precautions first, and the bottle of milk can be saved .But it's too late now—all we can do now is to forget about it, to let go of it and focus on the next thing.' "Because of this little performance, I remembered the lesson long after I had forgotten all I had learned about geometry and Latin. In fact, what this incident taught me in actual life, Better than anything I've ever learned in all my years in high school. It taught me to never spill the milk if possible, and if it spills and it all leaks, clean it up Forget about one thing."

Some readers may feel that it is a bit of a big deal to spend so much energy on the old saying-don't cry over spilled milk.I know this sentence is very common, and it can be said to be very old.However, such clichés contain the experience and wisdom accumulated by human beings over the years. This is also the crystallization of human wisdom, which has been passed down from generation to generation.Even if you could read all the books on worry written by the great scholars of every age, you won't find anything more basic and useful than "The boat will be straight when it reaches the bridge" and "Don't cry over spilled milk." .If only we could apply these two old sayings and not take them lightly, we would not need to read this book at all.However, knowledge cannot be power if it cannot be harnessed.

The purpose of this book is not to tell you anything new, but to remind you of what you already know, and to encourage you to put what you have learned into practice. I have always admired the late Fred Fowler Schard for his talent for saying old things in new and appealing ways.He was an editor for a newspaper in Philadelphia.Once, speaking to a senior college class, he asked, "How many of you have ever sawed wood? Raise your hand." Most of the students raised their hands to say they had.Then he asked, "How many people have ever sawed sawdust?" No one raised their hands.

"Of course, you can't saw sawdust," said Mr. Shard, "because that's what's already been sawn. It's the same with the past, when you start worrying about what's done and what's past, you just sawing some sawdust." When baseball veteran Connie Mack was 81 years old, I asked him if he ever worried about losing games. "Oh, yes. I used to do that," Connie Mac told me, "but I stopped doing stupid things like that years ago. I found out it didn't do me any good at all. The finished powder couldn't Grind them again because the water has washed them down to the bottom."

It is true that the fine powder that has been ground cannot be reground, nor the sawdust left over from sawing wood.However, you can also get rid of wrinkles on your face and ulcers in your stomach.Last Thanksgiving, I had dinner with Jack Dempsey.While we were eating turkey and sauce, he told me about the fight he lost the heavyweight title to Kim Tunney.Of course, this was a pretty big blow to his ego. He told me: "During the match, I suddenly realized that I turned into an old man... When the tenth round was over, I finally didn't fall, but I just didn't fall. My face was swollen. up, and with multiple bruises, eyes barely open... all I saw was the referee lifting Kim Tunney's hand and announcing him the winner - I'm not world champion anymore. I'm in the rain Walking back, through the crowd, to my own room. As I walked back, some people tried to hold my hand, others had tears in their eyes.

"A year later, I played another match with Tenney, but I didn't have a chance at all, and I was done forever. It's really difficult for me not to worry about it at all. But I said to myself, 'I don't want to live in the past, I don't want to cry over spilled milk, I want to take this hit and not let it knock me down.'" And that's exactly what Jack Dempsey did.How did he do it?Did he just say to himself over and over again, "I don't worry about the past anymore"?no!Doing so will only force him to think about his old worries.His approach was to take it all in, forget about his failures, and focus on making plans for the future.What he did was to start re-running the Dempsey Restaurant and the Great Northern Hotel on Broadway;He keeps himself so busy doing something constructive that he has neither the time nor the energy or the mind to worry about the past. "My life for the last 10 years," said Jack Dempsey, "has been much better than when I was world champion." Mr. Dempsey told me that he hadn't read much, but he was unconsciously doing what Shakespeare said: "Wise men never sit and mourn their mistakes and losses; Happy to find ways to complement their creations." I read history and biographies, and observe how ordinary people get through bad times, and I've been both amazed and envious of those who are able to forget their worries and misfortunes and go on living happily. I have been to Sing Sing Prison once, and what surprised me most there was that the prisoners seemed as happy as normal people.I immediately told my opinion to Lewis Lewis, then the Warden of Sing Sing Prison.He told me that when the prisoners first arrived at Sing Sing, they were bitter and ill-tempered, but after a few months the wiser among them were able to forget their misfortunes and settle down to bear their prison life, And do your best. Warden Lewis told me about a prisoner at Sing Sing who worked in the garden—singing while growing vegetables and flowers within the prison walls. So, why waste tears?Of course, mistakes or negligence are our fault, but so what?Who hasn't made a mistake?Even the world-famous Napoleon lost a third of all his important battles.Maybe our average record isn't inferior to Napoleon's, who knows?What's more, even if all the king's troops are mobilized, past mistakes cannot be recovered. So, let's remember rule number six: "Don't try to sawdust."