书城外语人性的弱点全集(英文朗读版)
46400700000104

第104章 PART 9How To Keep From Worrying About Criticism(15

But if you are not religious,and have to do things the hard way,then learn to relax by physical measures.Dr.David HaroldFink,who wrote Release from Nervous Tension,says that the best way to do this is to talk to your body.According to Dr.Fink,words are the key to all kinds of hypnosis;and when you consistently can’t sleep,it is because you have talked yourself into a case of insomnia.The way to undo this is to dehypnotise yourself—and you can do it by saying to the muscles of your body:“Let go,let go—loosen up and relax.”We already know that the mind and nerves can’t relax while the muscles are tense—so if we want to go to sleep,we start with the muscles.Dr.Fink recommends—and it works out in practice—that we put a pillow under the knees to ease the tension on the legs,and that we tuck small pillows under the arms for the very same reason.Then,by telling the jaw to relax,the eyes,the arms,and the legs,we finally drop off to sleep before we know what has hit us.I’ve tried it—I know.If you have trouble sleeping,get hold of Dr.Fink’s book,Release from Nervous Tension,which I have mentioned earlier It is the only book I know of that is both lively reading and a cure for insomnia.

One of the best cures for insomnia is making yourself physically tired by gardening,swimming,tennis,golf,skiing,or by just plain physically exhausting work.That is what Theodore Dreiser did.When he was a struggling young author,he was worried about insomnia,so he got a job working as a section hand on the New York Central Railway;and after a day of driving spikes and shoveling gravel,he was so exhausted that he could hardly stay awake long enough to eat.

If we get tired enough,nature will force us to sleep even while we are walking.To illustrate,when I was thirteen years old,my father shipped a car-load of fat hogs to Saint Joe,Missouri.Since he got two free railroad passes,he took me along with him.Up until that time,I had never been in a town of more than fourthousand.When I landed in Saint Joe—a city of sixty thousand—I was agog with excitement.I saw skyscrapers six storeys high and—wonder of wonders—I saw a street-car.I can close my eyes now and still see and hear that street-car.After the most thrilling and exciting day of my life,Father and I took a train back to Ravenwood,Missouri.Arriving there at two o’clock in the morning,we had to walk four miles home to the farm.And here is the point of the story:I was so exhausted that I slept and dreamed as I walked.I have often slept while riding horseback.And I am alive to tell it!

When men are completely exhausted they sleep right through the thunder and horror and danger of war.Dr.Foster Kennedy,the famous neurologist,tells me that during the retreat of the Fifth British Army in 1918,he saw soldiers so exhausted that they fell on the ground where they were and fell into a sleep as sound as a coma.They didn’t even wake up when he raised their eyelids with his fingers.And he says he noticed that invariably the pupils of the eyes were rolled upward in the sockets.“After that,”says Dr.Kennedy,“when I had trouble sleeping,I would practice rolling up my eyeballs into this position,and I found that in a few seconds I would begin to yawn and feel sleepy.It was an automatic reflex over which I had no control.”

No man ever committed suicide by refusing to sleep and no one ever will.Nature would force a man to sleep in spite of all his will power.Nature will let us go without food or water far longer than she will let us go without sleep.

Speaking of suicide reminds me of a case that Dr.HenryC.Link describes in his book,The Rediscovery of Man.Dr.Link is vice-president of The Psychological Corporation and he interviews many people who are worried and depressed.In his chapter “On Overcoming Fears and Worries”,he tells about apatient who wanted to commit suicide.Dr.Link knew arguing would only make the matter worse,so he said to this man:“If you are going to commit suicide anyway,you might at least do it in a heroic fashion.Run around the block until you drop dead.”

He tried it,not once but several times,and each time felt better,in his mind if not in his muscles.By the third night he had achieved what Dr.Link intended in the first place—he was so physically tired (and physically relaxed)that he slept like a log.Later he joined an athletic club and began to compete in competitive sports.Soon he was feeling so good he wanted to live for ever!

So,to keep from worrying about insomnia,here are rules 5:

1.If yon can’t sleep,do what Samuel Untermyer did.Get up and work or read until you do feel sleepy.

2.Remember that no one was ever killed by lack of sleep.Worrying about insomnia usually causes far more damage than sleeplessness.

3.Try prayer.

4.Relax your body.

5.Exercise.Get yourself so physically tired you can’t stay awake.

第11章PART 11How to Find the Kind of Work in Which You MayBe Happy and Successful

Chapter 58

The Major Decision of Your Life

This chapter is addressed to young men and women who haven’t yet found the work they want to do.If you are in that category,reading this chapter may have a profound effect upon the remainder of your life.

If you are under eighteen,you will probably soon be called upon to make the two most important decisions of your life—decisions that will profoundly alter all the days of your years:decisions that may have far-reaching effects upon your happiness,your income,your health;decisions that may make or break you.What are these two tremendous decisions?

First:How are you going to make a living?Are you going to be a farmer,a mail carrier,a chemist,a forest ranger,a stenographer,a horse dealer,a college professor,or are you going to run a hamburger stand?

Second:Whom are you going to select to be the father or mother of your children?Both of those great decisions are frequently gambles.“Every boy,”says Harry Emerson Fosdick in his book,The Power to See It Through,“every boy is a gambler when he chooses a vocation.He must stake his life on it.”