Chapter 18 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 date back 180 million years.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 count is to calmly analyze our past mistakes and learn from them!Then forget about the mistakes. I know this sentence makes sense, but have I always had the courage and thought to practice it?To answer this question, let me tell you about an amazing experience I had a few years ago when I let over $30 slip through my fingers without making a single 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 classes so I had neither the time nor the mood to manage finances, and I was too naive to find a good business manager to handle the expenses.

Finally, after nearly a year, I discovered something both clear 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 he was saving in 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 didn't do either 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 really embarrassing for me to admit to this stupid behavior of the past.But I discovered a truth early on: "It is much easier to teach 20 people how to do it than to do it by yourself." I really wish I could go to George Washington High School in New York and be Paul Brandwell's student.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 our class went 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 thought What does it have to do with the physiology and hygiene class he taught. At this time, Dr. Paul Brandwell suddenly stood up, smashed the bottle of milk in the sink with his palm. Then, he said loudly: "Don't worry about the Spilled milk cries.' "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. , this bottle of milk is gone—you can see that it has leaked out, no matter how anxious you are, how much you complain, it is impossible to save another drop. As long as you use a little thought and precaution first, the bottle of milk will be gone It can be kept. But it is too late now—all we can do now is to forget about it, to put this thing aside and focus on the next thing.'

"This little performance, I remembered the lesson long after I had forgotten all I had learned about geometry and Latin. In fact, it taught me more in real life than Anything I learned in all those years of high school is good. It taught me this: Never spill the milk if possible, and if the milk spills and the whole thing leaks out, just forget about it matter." Some readers may feel that it is a bit of a big deal to spend so much energy on saying the old saying, "Don't cry over spilled milk."I know this is a very common saying, 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.If you could read all the books on worry written by the great scholars of every age, you wouldn't read anything more basic and useful than "The boat will be straight when it reaches the bridge" and "Don't cry over spilled milk." up.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 always admired the late Fred Fowler Scharder for his gift of saying old things in new and catchy 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. Shad, "because that's what's already been sawed. 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. No more grinding, 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 marmalade, 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 game with Tenny, but I didn't have a chance at all, and I was finished forever. It is really difficult for me not to worry about this matter 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 kept himself so busy doing something constructive that he had 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 a lot 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 there mourning their mistakes and losses; Excited to find ways to complement their creations.” As I read history and biographies, and observe how ordinary people survive difficult circumstances, I've been both amazed and envious of those who are able to forget their worries and misfortunes and go on living happily. I went 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 superintendent 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 and omissions are our fault, but so what?Who hasn't made a mistake?Even Napoleon, who is famous all over the world, lost a third of all his important battles.Maybe our average record isn't as bad as Napoleon's, who knows?What's more, even if you mobilize everything you have, you can't recover past mistakes.