something about Rule 6:
When fate hands us a lemon, let's try to make a lemonade.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter 18: How To Cure Melancholy In Fourteen Days
When I started writing this book, I offered a two-hundred-dollar prize for the most
helpful and inspiring true story on "How I Conquered Worry".
The three judges for this contest were: Eddie Rickenbacker, president, Eastern Air
Lines; Dr. Stewart W. McClelland, president, Lincoln Memorial University; H. V.
Kaltenborn, radio news analyst. However, we received two stories so superb that the
judges found it impossible to choose between them. So we divided the prize. Here is
one of the stories that tied for first prize-the story of C.R. Burton (who works for
Whizzer Motor Sales of Missouri, Inc.), 1067 Commercial Street, Springfield, Missouri.
"I lost my mother when I was nine years old, and my father when I was twelve," Mr.
Burton wrote me. "My father was killed, but my mother simply walked out of the house
one day nineteen years ago; and I have never seen her since. Neither have I ever seen
my two little sisters that she took with her. She never even wrote me a letter until after
she had been gone seven years. My father was killed in an accident three years after
Mother left. He and a partner bought a cafe in a small Missouri town; and while Father
was away on a business trip, his partner sold the cafe for cash and skipped out. A friend
wired Father to hurry back home; and in his hurry, Father was killed in a car accident at
Salinas, Kansas. Two of my father's sisters, who were poor and old and sick took three of
the children into their homes. Nobody wanted me and my little brother. We were left at
the mercy of the town. We were haunted by the fear of being called orphans and
treated as orphans. Our fears soon materialised, too.
I lived for a little while with a poor family in town. But times were hard and the head of
the family lost his job, so they couldn't afford to feed me any longer. Then Mr. and Mrs.
Loftin took me to live with them on their farm eleven miles from town. Mr. Loftin was
seventy years old, and sick in bed with shingles. He told me I could stay there 'as long as
I didn't lie, didn't steal, and did as I was told'. Those three orders became my Bible. I
lived by them strictly. I started to school, but the first week found me at home, bawling
like a baby. The other children picked on me and poked fun at my big nose and said I
was dumb and called me an 'orphan brat'. I was hurt so badly that I wanted to fight
them; but Mr. Loftin, the farmer who had taken me in, said to me: 'Always remember
that it takes a bigger man to walk away from a fight than it does to stay and fight.' I
didn't fight until one day a kid picked up some chicken manure from the schoolhouse
yard and threw it in my face. I beat the hell out of him; and made a couple of friends.
They said he had it coming to him.
"I was proud of a new cap that Mrs. Loftin had bought me. One day one of the big girls
jerked it off my head and filled it with water and ruined it. She said she filled it with
water so that 'the water would wet my thick skull and keep my popcorn brains from
popping'.
"I never cried at school, but I used to bawl it out at home. Then one day Mrs. Loftin
gave me some advice that did away with all troubles and worries and turned my
enemies into friends. She said: 'Ralph, they won't tease you and call you an "orphan
brat" any more if you will get interested in them and see how much you can do for
them.' I took her advice. I studied hard; and I soon headed the class. I was never envied
because I went out of my way to help them.
"I helped several of the boys write their themes and essays. I wrote complete debates
for some of the boys. One lad was ashamed to let his folks know that I was helping him.
So he used to tell his mother he was going possum hunting. Then he would come to Mr.
Loftin's farm and tie his dogs up in the barn while I helped him with his lessons. I wrote
book reviews for one lad and spent several evenings helping one of the girls on her
math's.
"Death struck our neighbourhood. Two elderly farmers died and one woman was
deserted by her husband. I was the only male in four families. I helped these widows for
two years. On my way to and from school, I stopped at their farms, cut wood for them,
milked their cows, and fed and watered their stock. I was now blessed instead of
cursed. I was accepted as a friend by everyone. They showed their real feelings when I
returned home from the Navy. More than two hundred farmers came to see me the first
day I was home. Some of them drove as far as eighty miles, and their concern for me
was really sincere. Because I have been busy and happy trying to help other people, I
have few worries; and I haven't been called an 'orphan brat' now for thirteen years."
Hooray for C.R. Burton! He knows how to win friends! And he also knows how to conquer
worry and enjoy life.
So did the late Dr. Frank Loope, of Seattle, Washington. He was an invalid for twentythree
years. Arthritis. Yet Stuart Whithouse of the Seattle Star wrote me, saying: "I
interviewed Dr. Loope many times; and I have never known a man more unselfish or a
man who got more out of life."
How did this bed-ridden invalid get so much out of life? I'll give you two guesses. Did he
do it by complaining and criticising? No. ... By wallowing in self-pity and demanding that
he be the centre of attention and everyone cater to him? No. ... Still wrong. He did it by
adopting as his slogan the motto of the Prince of Wales: "Ich dien"-"I serve." He
accumulated the names and addresses of other invalids and cheered both them and
himself by writing happy, encouraging letters. In fact, he organised a letter-writing club
for invalids and got them writing letters to one another. Finally, he formed a national
organisation called the Shut-in Society.
As he lay in bed, he wrote an average of fourteen hundred letters a year and brought
joy to thousands of invalids by getting radios and books for shut-ins.
What was the chief difference between Dr. Loope and a lot of other people? Just this:
Dr. Loope had the inner glow of a man with a purpose, a mission. He had the joy of
knowing that he was being used by an idea far nobler and more significant than himself,
instead of being as Shaw put it: "a self-centred, little clod of ailments and grievances
complaining that the world would not devote itself to making him happy."
Here is the most astonishing statement that I ever read from the pen of a great
psychiatrist. This statement was made by Alfred Adler. He used to say to his
melancholia patients: "You can be cured in fourteen days if you follow this prescription.
Try to think every day how you can please someone."
That statement sounds so incredible that I feel I ought to try to explain it by quoting a
couple of pages from Dr. Adler's splendid book, What Life Should Mean to You. (*) (By
the way, there is a book you ought to read.)
[*] Allen & Unwin Ltd.
"Melancholia," says Adler in What Life Should Mean to You: "is like a long-continued rage
and reproach against others, though for the purpose of gaining care, sympathy and
support, the patient seems only to be dejected about his own guilt. A melancholiac's
first memory is generally something like this: 'I remember I wanted to lie on the couch,
but my brother was lying there. I cried so much that he had to leave.'
"Melancholiacs are often inclined to revenge themselves by committing suicide, and the
doctor's first care is to avoid giving them an excuse for suicide. I myself try to relieve
the whole tension by proposing to them, as the first rule in treatment, 'Never do
anything you don't like.' This seems to be very modest, but I believe that it goes to the
root of the whole trouble If a melancholiac is able to do anything he wants, whom can
he accuse? What has he got to revenge himself for? 'If you want to go to the theatre,' I
tell him, 'or to go on a holiday, do it. If you find on the way that you don't want to, stop
it.' It is the best situation anyone could be in. It gives a satisfaction to his striving for
superiority. He is like God and can do what he pleases. On the other hand, it does not
fit very easily into his style of life. He wants to dominate and accuse others and if they
agree with him there is no way of dominating them. This rule is a great relief and I have
never had a suicide among my patients.
"Generally the patient replies: 'But there is nothing I like doing.' I have prepared for this
answer, because I have heard it so often. 'Then refrain from doing anything you dislike,'
I say. Sometimes, however, he will reply: 'I should like to stay in bed all day.' I know
that, if I allow it, he will no longer want to do it. I know that, if I hinder him, he will
start a war. I always agree.
"This is one rule. Another attacks their style of life more directly. I tell them: 'You can
be cured in fourteen days if you follow this prescription. Try to think every day how you
can please someone.' See what this means to them. They are occupied with the thought.
'How can I worry someone.' The answers are very interesting. Some say: 'This will be
very easy for me. I have done it all my life.' They have never done it. I ask them to think
it over. They do not think it over. I tell them: 'You can make use of all the time you
spend when you are unable to go to sleep by thinking how you can please someone, and
it will be a big step forward in your health.' When I see them next day, I ask them: 'Did
you think over what I suggested?' They answer: 'Last night I went to sleep as soon as I got
to bed.' All this must be done, of course, in a modest, friendly manner, without a hint of
superiority.
"Others will answer: 'I could never do it. I am so worried.' I tell them: 'Don't stop
worrying; but at the same time you can think now and then of others.' I want to direct
their interest always towards their fellows. Many say: 'Why should I please others?
Others do not try to please me.' 'You must think of your health,' I answer. The others
will suffer later on.' It is extremely rare that I have found a patient who said: 'I have
thought over what you suggested.' All my efforts are devoted towards increasing the
social interest of the patient. I know that the real reason for his malady is his lack of cooperation
and I want him to see it too. As soon as he can connect himself with his fellow
men on an equal and co-operative footing, he is cured. ... The most important task
imposed by religion has always been 'Love thy neighbour'. ... It is the individual who is
not interested in his fellow man who has the greatest difficulties in life and provides the
greatest injury to others. It is from among such individuals that all human failures
spring.
... All that we demand of a human being, and the highest praise we can give him is that
he should be a good fellow worker, a friend to all other men, and a true partner in love
and marriage."
Dr. Adler urges us to do a good deed every day. And what is a good deed? "A good deed,"
said the prophet Mohammed, "is one that brings a smile of joy to the face of another."
Why will doing a good deed every day produce such astounding efforts on the doer?
Because trying to please others will cause us to stop thinking of ourselves: the very
thing that produces worry and fear and melancholia.
Mrs. William T. Moon, who operates the Moon Secretarial School, 521 Fifth Avenue, New
York, didn't have to spend two weeks thinking how she could please someone in order to
banish her melancholy. She went Alfred Adler one better-no, she went Adler thirteen
better. She banished her melancholy, not in fourteen days, but in one day, by thinking
how she could please a couple of orphans.
It happened like this: "In December, five years ago," said Mrs. Moon, "I was engulfed in a
feeling of sorrow and self-pity. After several years of happy married life, I had lost my
husband. As the Christmas holidays approached, my sadness deepened. I had never
spent a Christmas alone in all my life; and I dreaded to see this Christmas come. Friends
had invited me to spend Christmas with them. But I did not feel up to any gaiety. I knew
I would be a wet blanket at any party. So, I refused their kind invitations. As Christmas
Eve approached, I was more and more overwhelmed with self-pity. True, I should have
been thankful for many things, as all of us have many things for which to be thankful.
The day before Christmas, I left my office at three o'clock in the afternoon and started
walking aimlessly up Fifth Avenue, hoping that I might banish my self-pity and
melancholy. The avenue was jammed with gay and happy crowds-scenes that brought
back memories of happy years that were gone.
I just couldn't bear the thought of going home to a lonely and empty apartment. I was
bewildered. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't keep the tears back. After walking
aimlessly for an hour or so, I found myself in front of a bus terminal. I remembered that
my husband and I had often boarded an unknown bus for adventure, so I boarded the
first bus I found at the station. After crossing the Hudson River and riding for some time,
I heard the bus conductor say: 'Last stop, lady.' I got off. I didn't even know the name of
the town. It was a quiet, peaceful little place. While waiting for the next bus home, I
started walking up a residential street. As I passed a church, I heard the beautiful
strains of 'Silent Night'. I went in. The church was empty except for the organist. I sat
down unnoticed in one of the pews. The lights from the gaily decorated Christmas tree
made the decorations seem like myriads of stars dancing in the moonbeams. The longdrawn
cadences of the music-and the fact that I had forgotten to eat since morningmade
me drowsy. I was weary and heavy-laden, so I drifted off to sleep.
"When I awoke, I didn't know where I was. I was terrified. I saw in front of me two small
children who had apparently come in to see the Christmas tree. One, a little girl, was
pointing at me and saying: 'I wonder if Santa Clause brought her'. These children were
also frightened when I awoke. I told them that I wouldn't hurt them. They were poorly
dressed. I asked them where their mother and daddy were. 'We ain't got no mother and
daddy,' they said. Here were two little orphans much worse off than I had ever been.
They made me feel ashamed of my sorrow and self-pity. I showed them the Christmas
tree and then took them to a drugstore and we had some refreshments, and I bought
them some candy and a few presents. My loneliness vanished as if by magic. These two
orphans gave me the only real happiness and self-forgetfulness that I had had in months.
As I chatted with them, I realised how lucky I had been. I thanked God that all my
Christmases as a child had been bright with parental love and tenderness. Those two
little orphans did far more for me than I did for them. That experience showed me again
the necessity of making other people happy in order to be happy ourselves. I found that
happiness is contagious. By giving, we receive. By helping someone and giving out love, I
had conquered worry and sorrow and self-pity, and felt like a new person. And I was a
new person-not only then, but in the years that followed." I could fill a book with stories
of people who forgot themselves into health and happiness. For example, let's take the
case of Margaret Tayler Yates, one of the most popular women in the United States
Navy.
Mrs. Yates is a writer of novels, but none of her mystery stories is half so interesting as
the true story of what happened to her that fateful morning when the Japanese struck
our fleet at Pearl Harbour. Mrs. Yates had been an invalid for more than a year: a bad
heart. She spent twenty-two out of every twenty-four hours in bed. The longest journey
that she undertook was a walk into the garden to take a sunbath. Even then, she had to
lean on the maid's arm as she walked. She herself told me that in those days she
expected to be an invalid for the balance of her life. "I would never have really lived
again," she told me," if the Japs had not struck Pearl Harbour and jarred me out of my
complacency.
"When this happened," Mrs. Yates said, as she told her story, "everything was chaos and
confusion. One bomb struck so near my home, the concussion threw me out of bed.
Army trucks rushed out to Hickam Field, Scofield Barracks, and Kaneohe Bay Air Station,
to bring Army and Navy wives and children to the public schools. There the Red Cross
telephoned those who had extra rooms to take them in. The Red Cross workers knew
that I had a telephone beside my bed, so they asked me to be a clearing-house of
information. So I kept track of where Army and Navy wives and children were being
housed, and all Navy and Army men were instructed by the Red Cross to telephone me
to find out where their families were.
"I soon discovered that my husband, Commander Robert Raleigh Yates, was safe. I tried
to cheer up the wives who did not know whether their husbands had been killed; and I
tried to give consolation to the widows whose husbands had been killed-and they were
many. Two thousand, one hundred and seventeen officers and enlisted men in the Navy
and Marine Corps were killed and 960 were reported missing.
"At first I answered these phone calls while lying in bed. Then I answered them sitting
up in bed. Finally, I got so busy, so excited, that I forgot all about my weakness and got
out of bed and sat by a table. By helping others who were much worse off than I was, I
forgot all about myself; and I have never gone back to bed again except for my regular
eight hours of sleep each night. I realise now that if the Japs had not struck at Pearl
Harbour, I would probably have remained a semi-invalid all my life. I was comfortable in
bed. I was constantly waited on, and I now realise that I was unconsciously losing my
will to rehabilitate myself.
"The attack on Pearl Harbour was one of the greatest tragedies in American history, but
as far as I was concerned, it was one of the best things that ever happened to me. That
terrible crisis gave me strength that I never dreamed I possessed. It took my attention
off myself and focused it on others. It gave me something big and vital and important to
live for. I no longer had time to think about myself or care about myself."
A third of the people who rush to psychiatrists for help could probably cure themselves
if they would only do as Margaret Yates did: get interested in helping others. My idea?
No, that is approximately what Carl Jung said. And he ought to know -if anybody does.
He said: "About one-third of my patients are suffering from no clinically definable
neurosis, but from the senselessness and emptiness of their lives." To put it another
way, they are trying to thumb a ride through life-and the parade passes them by. So
they rush to a psychiatrist with their petty, senseless, useless lives. Having missed the
boat, they stand on the wharf, blaming everyone except themselves and demanding that
the world cater to their self-centred desires.
You may be saying to yourself now: "Well, I am not impressed by these stories. I myself
could get interested in a couple of orphans I met on Christmas Eve; and if I had been at
Pearl Harbour, I would gladly have done what Margaret Tayler Yates did. But with me
things are different: I live an ordinary humdrum life. I work at a dull job eight hours a
day. Nothing dramatic ever happens to me. How can I get interested in helping others?
And why should I? What is there in it for me?"
A fair question. I'll try to answer it. However humdrum your existence may be, you
surely meet some people every day of your life. What do you do about them? Do you
merely stare through them, or do you try to find out what it is that makes them tick?
How about the postman, for example-he walks hundreds of miles every year, delivering
mail to your door; but have you ever taken the trouble to find out where he lives, or ask
to see a snapshot of his wife and his kids? Did you ever ask him if his feet get tired, or if
he ever gets bored?
What about the grocery boy, the newspaper vendor, the chap at the corner who polishes
your shoes? These people are human -bursting with troubles, and dreams, and private
ambitions. They are also bursting for the chance to share them with someone. But do
you ever let them? Do you ever show an eager, honest interest in them or their lives?
That's the sort of thing I mean. You don't have to become a Florence Nightingale or a
social reformer to help improve the world-your own private world; you can start
tomorrow morning with the people you meet!
What's in it for you? Much greater happiness! Greater satisfaction, and pride in yourself!
Aristotle called this kind of attitude "enlightened selfishness". Zoroaster said: "Doing
good to others is not a duty. It is a joy, for it increases your own health and happiness."
And Benjamin Franklin summed it up very simply-"When you are good to others," said
Franklin, "you are best to yourself."
"No discovery of modern psychology," writes Henry C. Link, director of the Psychological
Service Centre in New York, "no discovery of modern psychology is, in my opinion, so
important as its scientific proof of the necessity of self-sacrifice or discipline to selfrealisation
and happiness."
Thinking of others will not only keep you from worrying about yourself; it will also help
you to make a lot of friends and have a lot of fun. How? Well, I once asked Professor
William Lyon Phelps, of Yale, how he did it; and here is what he said:
"I never go into a hotel or a barber-shop or a store without saying something agreeable
to everyone I meet. I try to say something that treats them as an individual-not merely a
cog in a machine. I sometimes compliment the girl who waits on me in the store by
telling her how beautiful her eyes are-or her hair. I will ask a barber if he doesn't get
tired standing on his feet all day. I'll ask him how he came to take up barbering-how
long he has been at it and how many heads of hair he has cut. I'll help him figure it out.
I find that taking an interest in people makes them beam with pleasure. I frequently
shake hands with a redcap who has carried my grip. It gives him a new lift and freshens
him up for the whole day. One extremely hot summer day, I went into the dining car of
the New Haven Railway to have lunch. The crowded car was almost like a furnace and
the service was slow.
When the steward finally got around to handing me the menu, I said: 'The boys back
there cooking in that hot kitchen certainly must be suffering today.' The steward began
to curse. His tones were bitter. At first, I thought he was angry. 'Good God Almighty,' he
exclaimed, 'the people come in here and complain about the food. They kick about the
slow service and growl about the heat and the prices. I have listened to their criticisms
for nineteen years and you are the first person and the only person that has ever
expressed any sympathy for the cooks back there in the boiling kitchen. I wish to God
we had more passengers like you.'
"The steward was astounded because I had thought of the coloured cooks as human
beings, and not merely as cogs in the organisation of a great railway. What people
want," continued Professor Phelps, "is a little attention as human beings. When I meet a
man on the street with a beautiful dog, I always comment on the dog's beauty. As I walk
on and glance back over my shoulder, I frequently see the man petting and admiring the
dog. My appreciation has renewed his appreciation.
"One time in England, I met a shepherd, and expressed my sincere admiration for his big
intelligent sheepdog. I asked him to tell me how he trained the dog. As I walked away, I
glanced back over my shoulder and saw the dog standing with his paws on the shepherd's
shoulders and the shepherd was petting him. By taking a little interest in the shepherd
and his dog, I made the shepherd happy. I made the dog happy and I made myself
happy."
Can you imagine a man who goes around shaking hands with porters and expressing
sympathy for the cooks in the hot kitchen-and telling people how much he admires their
dogs-can you imagine a man like that being sour and worried and needing the services
of a psychiatrist? You can't, can you? No, of course not. A Chinese proverb puts it this
way: "A bit of fragrance always clings to the hand that gives you roses."
You didn't have to tell that to Billy Phelps of Yale. He knew it. He lived it.
If you are a man, skip this paragraph. It won't interest you. It tells how a worried,
unhappy girl got several men to propose to her. The girl who did that is a grandmother
now. A few years ago, I spent the night in her and her husband's home. I had been giving
a lecture in her town; and the next morning she drove me about fifty miles to catch a
train on the main line to New York Central. We got to talking about winning friends, and
she said: "Mr. Carnegie, I am going to tell you something that I have never confessed to
anyone before- not even to my husband." (By the way, this story isn't going to be half so
interesting as you probably imagine.) She told me that she had been reared in a socialregister
family in Philadelphia. "The tragedy of my girlhood and young womanhood," she
said, "was our poverty. We could never entertain the way the other girls in my social set
entertained.
My clothes were never of the best quality. I outgrew them and they didn't fit and they
were often out of style. I was so humiliated, so ashamed, that I often cried myself to
sleep. Finally, in sheer desperation, I hit upon the idea of always asking my partner at
dinner-parties to tell me about his experiences, his ideas, and his plans for the future. I
didn't ask these questions because I was especially interested in the answers. I did it
solely to keep my partner from looking at my poor clothes. But a strange thing
happened: as I listened to these young men talk and learned more about them, I really
became interested in listening to what they had to say. I became so interested that I
myself sometimes forgot about my clothes. But the astounding thing to me was this:
since I was a good listener and encouraged the boys to talk about themselves, I gave
them happiness and I gradually became the most popular girl in our social group and
three of these men proposed marriage to me."
(There you are, girls: that is the way it is done.)
