Chapter 27 Eliminate mental worries

Pasteur, a great French scientist, once talked about "the peace found in libraries and laboratories".Why find peace there?Because people who work in libraries and laboratories are usually so absorbed in their work that they have no time to worry about themselves.People who do research rarely break down because they simply don't have the "luxury" of time that other people have. "Keep yourself busy" is such a simple thing, how can such a simple thing get worry out of your mind?Because there is such a theorem: No matter how smart a person is, it is impossible to think about several things at the same time. This is one of the basic theorems discovered by psychology.Let's do an experiment: Suppose you sit back in a chair, close your eyes, and try to think about the Statue of Liberty and what you are going to do tomorrow at the same time.

At this time, you will find that you can only think about one of them in turn, and it is impossible to think about two things at the same time, right?The same goes for your emotions.For example, we cannot be passionate about doing something exciting and at the same time procrastinating because of worry.One feeling will drive the other out.It was such a simple discovery that some psychotherapists in the military were able to create a medical miracle in wartime. Some people retreated because they could not withstand the blows on the battlefield, and suffered from a kind of "psychological neurasthenia".Army doctors have mostly taken a "keep them busy" approach to this.Except when they sleep, these mentally distressed people are active all the time, such as fishing, hunting, basketball, golf, taking pictures, growing flowers, or dancing, without giving them any thought of themselves The time of those horrible experiences.

"Occupational therapy" is a new term invented by modern psychologists, that is, using work as medicine to treat diseases.This is not a new method, because 500 years before the birth of Jesus, doctors in ancient Greece had already used this method to treat people. On a night a few years ago that I will never forget, one of my classmates, Marion Douglas, told us about more than one misfortune that had befallen his family.For the first time, he lost his 5-year-old daughter, a child he loved very much.Both he and his wife thought they couldn't take the blow, but, in his words, "Ten months later, God gave us a little girl, but she died after only five days. "

This one after another blow is almost unbearable."I couldn't take it," the father told us. "I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat, I couldn't rest or relax. These unfortunate events had dealt a fatal blow to my spirit and left me with no confidence." Finally, he went to see doctor.One doctor advised him to take sleeping pills, while another advised him to travel.He tried both methods, but neither worked for him.He said: "My body is like being caught in a big iron clip, and the iron clip is getting tighter and tighter." The pressure brought by that kind of sadness is really too great.

Thankfully though, we also have a kid - a 4 year old boy who taught us how to find solutions to our problems.One afternoon, as I sat there sadly, he asked me, "Dad, would you build me a boat?" At the time, I wasn't in the mood to build him a boat.Actually, I wasn't in the mood to do anything at all.But my son is a very pestering little guy, and I had to do what he said.It took me about 3 hours to build the toy boat for him. After the boat was built, I found that the 3 hours of building the boat turned out to be the most relaxing time for me during this period. It was this little discovery that jolted me out of my trance and made me think a lot—the first time I had thought seriously in months.I've found that if you're busy doing something that requires planning and thinking, you don't have time to worry.For me, all my worries about building that boat disappeared, so I decided to keep myself busy.The next night, I looked at each room and wrote down everything that needed to be done on a piece of paper.There are many small things such as bookshelves, stairs, curtains, door knobs, door locks, leaky faucets, etc. that need to be repaired.Incredibly, I accomplished 242 things in two weeks that I needed to do but didn't do.

Plus, I've added inspiring activities to my life: Two nights a week I travel to New York City to attend adult education classes and participate in some small town events.Now I am the chair of the school board, attend many meetings, and assist with fundraising for the Red Cross and other organizations.Now I'm too busy to worry. "There is no time to worry", Churchill also said this sentence, when the war was tense, he had to work 18 hours a day.When he was asked if he felt apprehensive about such a heavy responsibility, he said, "I'm so busy that I don't have time to worry."

Charles Kettering encountered a similar situation when he was working on auto-ignitions for automobiles.Mr. Kettering has been the vice president of General Motors, in charge of the world-renowned General Motors Research Corporation, and he retired not long ago.Back then, he was so poor that he could only rent a barn piled with straw as a laboratory, and the whole family's living expenses depended on the $1,500 his wife earned from teaching piano.Later, he had to borrow $500 against his life insurance.I asked his wife, was she worried during that period?She replied, "Of course, I was too worried to sleep, but my husband wasn't worried at all. He was so absorbed in his work that he didn't have time to worry."

For people, when work keeps them busy, being "soaked in work" leaves no time to worry.But once after get off work, that is, when we are free to enjoy our relaxation and happiness, the demon of worry will attack us.It’s a time when we often wonder about things like what we’re accomplishing in life, are we doing a good job, is there “something special” about what the boss said today, or we’ve started losing our hair… …When we are idle, our minds often become a vacuum.Students of physics know that "there is no vacuum in nature".Break an incandescent light bulb, for example, and immediately air will go in, theoretically filling that empty space.

When your brain is idle, there will be something to add to it. What is it?Usually it's how you feel.why?Because emotions such as worry, fear, hatred, jealousy, and envy are controlled by our minds, and these emotions are so strong that they tend to drive out all peaceful, happy thoughts and emotions in our minds. James Marshall, a professor of education at Columbia Teachers College, puts it very clearly in this regard: "Worry hurts you the most, not when you're busy with your work, but after you've finished your day's work." At that time, your imagination will be confused, and a lot of absurd things will appear in your mind, exaggerating every little mistake. At this time, your mind is like a car without a load, rampaging, destroying everything, Even smashing yourself to pieces. The best way to stop worrying is to do something meaningful to keep yourself busy."

Professors are not the only ones who understand this and put them into practice.I met a housewife living in Chicago during the war who told me how she had discovered that "the best way to get rid of worry is to keep yourself busy and do something meaningful."I was on my way from New York to a Missouri farm when I met this lady and her husband in the dining car of a train.The couple told me that their son joined the Army the day after Pearl Harbor.The mother was very worried about her only son, and her health suffered greatly as a result.She often wondered where he was, was he safe, was he at war, was he going to be hurt, was he still alive?

I asked her how she overcame this worry in the end.“I keep myself busy,” she replied. She told me she started firing maids in the hope that housework would keep her busy, but it didn’t work.She said: "The problem is, I always do my chores mechanically and without thinking at all, so when I make my bed and do the dishes, I'm still worrying. I find that I need some new work to keep me going every day. Every hour of my life keeps my body and mind busy, so I went to work as a salesman in a big department store." She said: "This time it's okay, I immediately felt as if I fell into a maelstrom of movement - I was surrounded by customers, they asked me questions about prices, sizes, colors, etc., I didn't think for a second except Problems other than work at hand. At night, I can only think about how to rest my legs. After dinner, I lie in bed and fall asleep quickly. I have neither energy nor time to worry .” Her approach, as John Cobbler Poss puts it in "The Art of Forgetting Unhappiness": "A comfortable sense of security, an inner tranquility, a joy dulled Feelings can make people calm when they are concentrating on work." If we're terribly worried about something, let's remember that work is a good old remedy.The late Dr. Richard Copperpot, formerly a professor at Harvard Medical School, said in "The Conditions of Life": "As a doctor, I am very happy to see that my work can make many patients feel better. Healed. Their illnesses are caused by excessive doubts, hesitation, hesitation, and fear. The courage that work brings us is like Emerson's immortal self-confidence." If we can't keep busy and let ourselves sit around and worry, we will have a lot of things that Darwin called "crazy thoughts", and these "crazy thoughts" are like the legendary devils, who turn our thoughts Hollows out, destroys our actions and our will. George Bernard Shaw summed it up in one sentence: "The reason why people worry is that they have free time to think about whether they are happy or not." He was right. If you want to eliminate worry, you don't have to think about it. Spit and keep yourself busy so your blood starts to circulate faster and your mind sharpens.Keeping yourself busy is the cheapest and most effective cure for worry in the world. To kick your worry habit, remember step three: Keep yourself busy.