Words Worth Noting - January 14, 2022

“The fifteen minutes that I spent with Professor [Duke] Baird did more for my health and happiness than all the rest of the four years I spent in college. ‘Jim,’ he said, ‘you ought to sit down and face the facts. If you devoted half as much time and energy to solving your problems as you do to worrying about them, you wouldn't have any worries. Worrying is just a vicious habit you have learned.’ He gave me three rules to break the worry habit:/ Rule 1. Find out precisely what is the problem you are worrying about./ Rule 2. Find out the cause of the problem. Rule 3. Do something constructive at once about solving the problem.”

Jim Birdsall “I Was ‘The Worrying Wreck from Virginia Tech”’ in Dale Carnegie How to Stop Worrying and Start Living [in consequence of receiving this advice, among other things he proposed to the girl he was afraid would leave him, and she said yes].