Stop Worrying and Start Living

From How to stop worrying

By Dale Carnegie

Overcoming worry can bring a great change into our life. The following is a true story of Earl P. Haney of Manchester, Massachusetts, who on November 17, 1948 told it to Dale Carnegie.  Haney overcame an incurable disease because he chose to enjoy life instead of worrying about death.

The story

Back in the twenties, I was so worried that ulcers began eating the lining of my stomach.  One night, I had a terrible hemorrhage.  I was rushed to a hospital connected with the School of Medicine of Northwestern University of Chicago.  My weight dropped from 175 pounds to 90 pounds.  I was so ill I was warned not even to lift my hand.  Three doctors, including a celebrated ulcer specialist, said my case was 'incurable'.  I lived on alkaline powers and a tablespoonful of half milk and half cream every hour.  A nurse put a rubber tube down into my stomach every night and morning and pumped out the contents. 

This went on for months…finally, I said to myself; 'look, here, Earl Haney, if you have nothing to look forward to except a lingering death, you might as well make the most of the little time you have left.  You have always wanted to travel around the world before you die; so if you are ever going to o it, you will have to do it now.'

When I told my physicals I was going to travel around the world and pump out my own stomach twice a day, they were shocked.  Impossible!  They had never heard of such a thing.  They warned me that if I started around the world, I would be buried at sea.  'No, I won't,' I replied.  'I have promised my relatives that I will be buried in the family plot at Broken Bow, Nebraska.  So I am going to take my casket with me.'

I arranged for a casket, put it abroad ship, and then made the arrangements with the steamship company - in the event of my death - to put my corpse in a freezing compartment and keep it there till the liner returned home.  I set out on my trip, imbued with the spirit of Omar:

"Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,

Before we too into the Dust descend;

Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie,

Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and - sans End".

The moment I boarded the S.S. President Adams in Los Angeles and head for the Orient, I felt better.  I gradually gave up my alkaline powers and my stomach pump.  I was soon eating all kinds of foods - even strange native mixtures and concoctions that were guaranteed to kill me.  As the weeks went by, I even smoked long, black cigars and drank highballs.  I enjoyed myself more than I had in years!  We ran into monsoons and typhoons which should have put me in my casket, if only from fright - but I got an enormous kick out of all this adventure.

I played games aboard the ship, sang songs, and made new friends, stayed up half the night.  When we reached China and India, I realized that the business cares that I had faced back home were paradise compared to the poverty and hunger in the Orient.  I stopped all my senseless worrying and felt fine.  When I got back to America, I had gained ninety pounds and I had almost forgotten I had ever had a stomach ulcer.  I had never felt better in my life.  I went back to business and haven't been ill a day since.