Chapter 20 Nine words that will change your life

Whether life is happy or not depends entirely on one's views on life, the world and all things. Therefore, it can be said that life is determined by thoughts. Some years ago, I was on a program on a radio station where they asked the question, "What's the most important lesson you've ever learned?" This is very simple for me, my answer is: the importance of thought.If others can know what you are thinking, they can understand who you are.Personality is in a sense determined by thought.The fate of man also depends entirely on the state of mind.Emerson once said: "People are what they think about all day..." In this case, how can people be anything else?

Now I can see with absolute certainty the greatest problem—in a sense almost the only problem—that one has to face: how to choose the right thought.If this can be done, all problems can be solved.Aryus, the great philosopher who once ruled the ancient Roman Empire, summed it up in one sentence—a fateful sentence: "Life is determined by thoughts." Indeed, if we spend our days in happiness and think only of happy things, we will find happiness; if we only think of sad things, we will be sad; if we imagine something terrible If things will happen, we will be filled with fear; if all our thoughts are evil, we will be disturbed; if we are afraid of failure, we will fail; us.

This statement does not refer to psychological hints, nor does it mean that we should treat all difficulties with an optimistic attitude.no!Life is never that simple.My purpose is to encourage everyone to face life with a positive attitude instead of a negative attitude.In other words, we must pay attention to our own problems, but not just worry.Where is the difference between concern and worry?And let me express it more clearly.I notice my situation every time I get stuck in traffic through downtown New York, but it doesn't make me anxious.Concern means to understand the crux of the problem, and then calmly act to solve it; worry is to circle in a narrow circle and drive oneself crazy.

People can put a flower on the skirt of their clothes while facing major difficulties in life, and walk on the street proudly.I once saw Lowell Thomas do that.On that occasion, I was assisting him on a famous First World War film about Allenby and Lawrence.Lowell Thomas and his assistants personally went to the battlefield to shoot, and truly recorded Lawrence, his Arab army and Allen Bay's conquest of the Holy Land.The film is interspersed with Lowell Thomas' famous speech - "Allenby of Pakistan and Lawrence of Arabia", which caused a sensation in London and the world.The London opera festival was delayed by six weeks to allow him to tell the thrilling tales at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.After his great success in London, Lowell Thomas traveled extensively, to many countries.After two and a half years of preparation, he began filming a documentary about his life in India and Afghanistan.However, an incredible series of bad luck befalls him - he finds himself broke.

At that time, we were often together.I remember very well that we had to eat cheap food in small street restaurants.If it were not for the help of the famous Scottish painter James Macbeth, we might not even have the meager food to eat. But that's not the point of the question. The crux of the matter is this: When Lowell Thomas was in debt, he paid attention to it, but didn't worry about it.Because he deeply understands that if he is depressed by bad luck, he becomes worthless, especially to those creditors.For this reason, before he goes out every morning, he always puts a flower on his skirt, and then walks up Oxford Street with his head held high.His mind is full of positivity and courage, and he will never let setbacks bring him down.For him, setbacks are just an integral part of life, a useful training that must be experienced when climbing the peak.

A person's mental state also has an incredible force on his own body.The famous British psychologist Hadfield has an excellent discussion on this in his 54-page but extraordinary little book "The Psychology of Strength". "I invited three men," he wrote in the book, "to test the influence of the mind on the body, as measured by a dynamometer." He asked the three men to grip the dynamometer with all their strength under different conditions. In general, their average grip strength is 101 pounds.In the second experiment, they were hypnotized and given the message that they were very weak.As a result of the experiment, their grip strength was only 29 pounds—less than a third of normal strength.Hadfield then gave the same group of people a third experiment, that is, after hypnosis, telling them that they were very strong, and their average grip strength reached 142 pounds.In other words, when people subconsciously affirm their own power, their power increases by almost fifty percent.

Such is our incredible mental strength. As a further proof of the great magic of thought, I would like to tell you one more of the strangest stories that happened during the American Civil War.This story could be written into a big book, and here we will only make a long story short. Many people know the founder of Christian Faith Healing as Mary Baker Eddy, but at the beginning, she believed that there were only sickness, pain and misfortune in life.Her first husband died shortly after their marriage, and her second eloped with a married woman and abandoned her, though he ended up dying in a poor asylum.She gave birth to a boy, but because of poverty and illness, she had to give him away when the child was four years old, and since then her whereabouts have been unknown, so that she has not been able to see him again for 31 years.

Because of her own poor health, she was initially interested in "faith healing."But the dramatic turning point in her life happened on a cold day in Massachusetts.That day, she was walking on the icy street, the road was so slippery, she suddenly fell down and passed out.Due to the severe damage to her spine, she was in constant spasms, and even the doctors didn't think she would live much longer.They said: "Even if a miracle happens and she survives, she will never be able to walk." Lying on a hospital bed as if waiting to die, Eddie opened the Bible and read a sentence from the Gospel of Matthew: "Someone carried two paralytics on a stretcher to Jesus, and Jesus said to the paralytics: Don't worry , your sins are forgiven... Arise, take your mat and go home. The man stood up and walked home."

She later recalled that these few words in the "Bible" gave her a kind of strength, a kind of faith, the power of a belief that could heal her physical illness, and made her "immediately got out of bed and started walking." "This experience," Eddie said, "like the apple that inspired Newton, made me discover how I got better and how I could make others do the same... Now I can be confident Say to others: All roots are in your mind, all influence is a psychological phenomenon.” You may be wondering, "Is this guy promoting Christian faith healing?" Nope!you are wrong!I am not a believer in this sect, and I have no intention of preaching at all.But the longer I live, the more I believe in the great power of thought.After 35 years in the adult education business, I've learned how men and women can overcome worry, fear, and disease of all kinds: Changing your thoughts can change your life.I've seen this transformation hundreds of times with my own eyes, and I've seen it so much that I'm used to it.

To give another example, it happened to one of my students, and this incredible transformation is also a testament to the power of thought.The student was on the verge of a mental breakdown because of worry.The student later told me, “I was full of worries about everything. I was worried that I was too thin; that I kept losing my hair; that I might never make enough money to have a wife; I am a good father; I am worried that I will lose the girl I want to marry because of my incompetence; I am worried that I will leave a lot of bad impressions on others; I am worried that I have a stomach ulcer and I will not be able to find a job. , like a boiler with no safety valve, the pressure finally got to an unbearable level, and suddenly one day it exploded - I had a total mental breakdown. If you haven't experienced a nervous breakdown, thank God, don't have this Experience, because there is no kind of physical pain that can surpass the extreme mental torture.

"My mental breakdown was so severe that I couldn't even talk to my family. I couldn't control my thoughts, I was so full of fear that I jumped at the slightest sound. I avoided everyone and often cried to myself for no reason. "I was in so much pain that I felt abandoned by the world, even by a merciful God. There were times when I felt like jumping into a river and killing myself. "Maybe a change of environment can help me, so I decided to travel to Florida. Before boarding the train, my father handed me a letter and told me to read it when I arrived at the destination. When I arrived in Florida, it was the local During peak tourist season, many hotels were full and I had to stay in a motel. I tried unsuccessfully to get a job on a tramp cargo ship in Miami, so I spent most of my time there. Spend time on the beach. "It was more difficult in Florida than at home, so I opened my father's letter. He wrote in the letter: 'Son, now you are 1,500 miles away from home, but you don't feel anything. Change, right? I also know you won't feel any different because you're still carrying the source of all your troubles - yourself. In fact, there's nothing wrong with your body or your mind. It's not Circumstances you encounter bring you down, but your own imagination. What a man thinks in his heart is what he will be. When you understand this, son, come home, for you are healed .' "My father's letter irritated me. What I needed was sympathy, not a lesson. I even made up my mind never to go home. That night, I was walking on a side street in Miami, passing a church that was holding a service. I was careless. I walked in and listened to a sermon on 'It is better to conquer the spirit than to conquer the land'. I sat in the temple of God and heard the same truth as my father, and it swept away all the messy thoughts in my head For the first time, I was thinking clearly and rationally, and suddenly I was so stupid, I was shocked that I could see myself so clearly. I also thought about changing the world-in fact, the only thing that needed What changes is the focal length of the camera lens of one's own mind. "I packed my luggage and went home early the next morning. A week later, I returned to my original job. Four months later, I married the girl I had been dreaming of for a long time. Now, I have a happy I have raised five children in my family. Whether it is material life or spiritual life, God has given me love. When I broke down, I was just the night shift leader of a small department with 18 people. Now I have become As the director of a carton factory, he manages more than 450 employees, and his life is more fulfilling and enjoyable than before. I believe that I understand the value of life, and once I get distracted, I will warn myself - put the camera's Adjust the focus. "Needless to say, I am very glad that I had a nervous breakdown that allowed me to discover control, both physically and mentally, and to discover that my mind worked for me rather than against me. I finally knew my father was right Indeed, it was not external factors that really worried me, but my own perception of myself. Once I understood this, I was healed and would never have it again." Such was the student's experience . I am convinced that peace of mind and all the joys in our lives lie not in where we are, what we have, or who we are, but in our state of mind. Three hundred years ago, Milton, after being blinded, discovered the same truth: "The use of thought and thought itself can make hell into heaven, and heaven into hell." Napoleon and Helen Keller are the best examples of Milton's words: Napoleon has everything that ordinary people pursue: glory, power, wealth, but he said to St. I never had a happy day." Helen Keller, a woman who was blind, deaf and dumb, said: "I found life so beautiful." If there's one thing I've learned from half a century of life, I think it's this: "Nothing can bring you peace but yourself." I would like to repeat what Emerson said in his famous essay "Confidence": "If anyone says that political victory, increase in wealth, recovery from disease, reunion of friends after long absence, or other purely external If there are things that can increase your interest and make you feel that there are many good opportunities in front of you, don’t believe that it is definitely not that simple. No one can bring you more except yourself.” Epictetus, a great Stoic philosopher, once warned people: We should try our best to eliminate negative views in our minds, which is much more important than cutting out tumors and abscesses in our bodies. This sentence 2,000 years ago has also been proved by modern medicine.Dr. Campbell-Robin said: "Four out of five patients admitted to Johns Hopkins Hospital are caused by emotional stress and excessive stress. Even some cases of physiological organs are the same. The root cause Bottom line, many problems can be traced back to mental dissonance." The great French philosopher Montan once used the following two sentences as his motto in life: "People are hurt by accidents, not as deeply as their own opinions on this matter. And opinions on everything that happens, It's entirely up to us." When you are troubled by all kinds of troubles and the whole person is highly stressed, I want to say that you can completely change your state of mind with your own willpower.Exactly, that's what I do.And, I'm also going to tell you how to do it.Although it may take more work, the method is very simple. The famous American psychologist William James once expressed such a point of view: "The common view is that action follows feeling, but in fact, action and feeling happen at the same time. If we can make our willpower The regularization of actions under control can also indirectly regularize the feelings that are not under the control of willpower." That is to say, we cannot change our emotions just by "making up our minds", but we can change our emotions. Behavior, and once behavior changes, feelings change automatically. He went on to explain: "If you are unhappy, the only way to find happiness is to raise your spirits and act and speak as if you already felt happy." Does this very simple approach really work?Try it: Put a very happy smile on your face, straighten your chest, take a deep breath of fresh air, sing a little song - if you can't sing well, just whistle... In this way, you will soon You will see what William James meant when he said that when your actions show that you are happy, it is impossible to worry and despair. This is one of the basic laws of nature that works miracles in life.I once knew a woman in California - I don't want to mention her name - who might have been able to wash away all her sorrows in twenty-four hours if she had known the secret.She was an old widow, very miserable, and never tried to be happy.If anyone asked her how she was feeling, she would always say, "Oh, I'm fine." But in her face and voice, you could tell she was saying, "Oh, my God, if you could touch those I can understand the troubles I have encountered.” I don’t know how many women in the world are in a worse situation than her.In fact, the insurance money left to her by her husband after death is enough for her to survive, and her children have already married and can take care of her, but I rarely see a smile on her face.She complained all day that the three sons-in-law were too bad and too selfish-even though she stayed in their house for several months at a time.She also complained that her daughter never gave her gifts-but she took money seriously-so-called "planning for the future".Such a person is so annoying. Does that have to be the case?No!She could turn herself from a disgruntled, fastidious, unhappy old woman into a respected and loved member of the family--if she wanted to, she could.To complete this transformation, she only needs to live happily and give others a little love, instead of always complaining about her own unhappiness and misfortune. I know a man named Inglet who discovered the secret and saved his life.Ten years ago, Mr. Inglet had contracted scarlet fever, and when he recovered he found himself suffering from kidney disease.He sought medical treatment everywhere and searched all the secret remedies, but no one could cure him. Before long, he suffered another complication.The doctor said that his blood pressure had reached the highest point, it was hopeless, and it was best to deal with the funeral immediately. "I went home," he said, "and after knowing that all my insurance money had been paid, I sat down to meditate in silence, and I confessed my past mistakes to God, and my heart was filled with pain. I let my My wife and family were sad, and I was in a depressed mood. However, after a week of self-pity, I said to myself: 'You are such a fool. I'm afraid you won't be dead in a year. So why not be happy while you're alive?" "So, I put my chest out, put on a smile, and looked like everything was normal. I admit it was a struggle at first, but I forced myself to be happy, and it helped not only my family, but myself as well. "Then I found myself getting better—almost as good as I pretended to be. The improvement went on and on. And to this day—after months of what was supposed to be my grave—I'm not only I am happy, alive, and my blood pressure has dropped. Of course, one thing is for sure, if I keep thinking that I will die and collapse, what the doctor predicted will come true. But I I gave my body a chance to recover on its own, and no one else or thing would do anything except change my mood." Let me ask you a question: If feeling happy, courageous, and healthy thinking can save a person's life, why should you and I get depressed over little unhappiness and depression?If making yourself happy creates happiness, why make yourself and your family and friends unhappy? Many years ago, I read a book called "The Human Mind" by James Allen.This book had a positive and profound impact on my life.Here is an excerpt of one of them: "One finds that things and people change for him as he changes his opinion of them... If a man directs his thoughts toward the light, he will be amazed to find that his There has been a huge change in life. People cannot attract what they want, but they may attract all they have... The divinity that can change our temperament exists in our own hearts... What people can get is often the direct result of their own thoughts... …Having an uplifting mind, he can rise up, conquer, and finally achieve something. If he can't stimulate his mind, he can only sink in weakness and suffer from sorrow forever." What I wanted was the ability to control myself—to control my thoughts, to control my fears, to control my desires.At this point I believe I have achieved something remarkable.At all times, I maintain the belief that as long as I control my actions, I can control my reactions. So, please remember the words of William James: "...as long as you change the inner feeling of a person in trouble from fear to struggle, you can change those negative things into something positive for you." Let us strive for happiness!Let's fight for our happiness with a constructive plan that produces happiness every day!The following is a plan called "For Today".I found it so effective that I made thousands of copies and gave it away.It was written 36 years ago by the late Sybil Patrick.If we can follow these methods to live, we can eliminate most of our worries and greatly increase our "happiness in life". for today 1. For today, I want to be very happy.If Lincoln's saying "Most people can be happy if they just make up their minds" is true, then happiness should come from within, not outside. 2. For today, I will adapt myself to everything instead of trying to adjust everything to suit my desires.I'm going to accept my family, my career, and my luck with that attitude. 3. For today, I will take good care of my body.I want to exercise more, be good at taking care of it, be good at cherishing it, not damage it, not ignore it, and make it a good foundation for me to strive for success. 4. For today, I want to enrich my thoughts and learn something useful.I don't want to be a cranky person, I want to read some books that require thinking and concentration. 5. For this day, I will exercise my soul with three things. I will do one good thing for others, and no one will know it. I will do two things I don't want to do. As William James said Said, just for exercise. 6. For today, I want to be a pleasing person, well-groomed, well-dressed, soft-spoken, graceful in action, not caring about others' reputations, not finding fault with anything, and not interfering or admonishing others. 7. For today, I will try to think seriously about how to spend each day, instead of trying to solve the problems of a lifetime, because although a person can work for 12 hours in a row, it is impossible to do this for a lifetime. 8. For today, I want to make a plan. I want to write down what I should do every hour. Maybe I won't follow it exactly, but I still have to make this plan, so that at least two shortcomings can be avoided--too hasty and indecision. 9. For today, I will leave myself a quiet half hour to relax.During this half hour, I want to think of God and make my life more hopeful. 10. For today, I will have no fear in my heart.Especially don't be afraid of being happy, I want to appreciate all beautiful things, love bravely, and believe that the person I love will love me. If we want to cultivate a peaceful and happy state of mind, here is the first rule: "With happy thoughts and actions, you can be happy."