8 Words That Can Change Your Life (Part 1)
Dale Carnegie Detroit and Southeast Michigan
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The story below is Part 1 of Chapter 2 from an unpublished book by Dale Carnegie. Part 2 coming soon :)
I was asked a short time ago on a radio program, to tell in three sentences the biggest lesson I had ever learned. This is what I said:
"The biggest lesson I have ever learned is the stupendous importance of what we think. If I knew what you think, I would know what you are, for your thoughts make you what you are. By changing our thoughts, we can change our lives."
A new idea? Hardly. Eighteen hundred years ago the far-flung Roman Empire was ruled by one of the wisest emperors of all history. His name was Marcus Aurelius. He not only led his armies to many victories but he also found time to write portions of an immortal book while sitting around a camp fire on the eve of battle.
Even while attending the great athletic games and gladiatorial combats in m Rome, he quietly wrote portions of his book - wrote them as the crowd all about him yelled with frenzy at the gladiators killing another in the arena. This book n c that Marcus Aurelius wrote under such conditions is called Meditations and is today one of the most precious legacies of all antiquity. Winston Churchill studies it frequently. In this immortal classic, Marcus Aurelius uttered eight words of profound wisdom, eight words that can change your life:
"Our life is what our thoughts make it."
I have done considerable research in several of the most famous libraries of the world; yet I have never discovered a more important truth than is contained in those eight words uttered by Marcus Aurelius eighteen centuries ago: "Our life is what our thoughts make it."
The biggest problem by far that you and I have to deal with is our thoughts. If we can solve that problem, we will be on the high road to solving all our problems. "Our life is what our thoughts make it."
Almost everything that has ever happened to you or ever will happen to you, will be the result of thought. Your clothes, your friends, your business, your disposition, your happiness, are all the expression of your thoughts. If you are not doing manual work, even your fatigue is usually the result of tension and strain caused by your thoughts.
When we are defeated, it is almost always because of what has happened inside of us and not by what has happened outside of us. For example, take Napoleon Bonaparte and my mother. Napoleon brilliantly and profoundly achieved the goals that millions of people throughout all ages have struggled for in vain - power, fame, riches, glory. He carved his name in the Valhalla of fame in bold letters. Yet the only thing he really was craving was satisfaction in life. Did he find it?
Well, listen to what he himself said in St. Helena: "I have never known six happy days in my life."
Contrast Napoleon with my mother, an obscure farmer's wife in northwest Missouri: no fame, no glory, no social position, no power, and as for money - well, we were so poor that she made the soap with which we washed our clothes. She even made the shirts and overalls that I wore as a little boy. She toiled fifteen hours a day keeping house, cooking the meals, washing the dishes, hoeing the garden, canning fruits, churning the butter. Yet my mother was so happy that she sang at her work.
Robert Browning, one of England's greatest poets since Shakespeare, declared: "There is a world of capability for joy spread around us, meant for us, inviting us." My mother knew that world of joy. She lived in it. Napoleon didn't.
Why was my mother happier than Napoleon? For one reason only: because of her thoughts. Her thoughts radiated faith, courage, hope, service to others and devotion to God. But Napoleon thought only of his own selfish interests. He climbed to glory over the bleeding bodies of a million men and the more power he got, the more he craved; so he ended by never having six happy days in his life. But my mother's religion filled her with a hope, a courage, a happiness that could express itself in nothing less than ringing songs of cheer.
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You can turn your life into a veritable hell, or you can turn it into an earthly paradise. You can do either exactly where you are and with exactly what you have. Your possessions, your surroundings, your enemies, your former worries and anxieties - these things won't matter much, once you control your thoughts and emotions.
Montaigne was the most brilliant essayist that France ever produced; and his family motto packs a lot of wisdom into seventeen words: "A man is hurt not so much by what happens as by his opinion of what happens."
I am reminded of those words each morning as I walk from my home in Forest Hills, Long Island, to the subway station, because I pass the houses of two men whose lives are a perfect illustration of the truth of Montaigne's motto. Back in 1929, both of these men lost the savings of a lifetime in the stock market crash.
One took his loss with philosophic wisdom. He said to himself, "Losing the money was bad enough, but losing my health and happiness by worrying over spilt milk would be a thousand times worse. I can still sleep just as many hours as I did before. I still have my strength, still have my ability to make a living, so I'll go right on living just as if I never had had any savings to lose."
The other man hired a room on the 18th floor of the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York - and jumped.
Remember, these two men met the same fate: both lost all their savings Yet one of them never missed a meal, never missed a night's sleep. The other plunged down eighteen stories into a mangled, bloody, disfigured wreck on the sidewalk.
What caused these two men to react so differently to the same problem? One thing only: their thoughts.
Let me repeat:
If you and I can control what goes on inside us, we will rarely, if ever, be defeated by what goes on outside us.
As Hamlet said:
"Nothing is either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."
Global Business Development Manager GI-Education | Driving Global Education Growth
1 年Wow, thanks for reposting Jef! “If you and I can control what goes on inside us, we will rarely, if ever, be defeated by what goes on outside us.” “..thoughts radiated faith, courage, hope, service to others and devotion to God.” So good!! ??
On Sabbatical from Delivering Outstanding Project Management Results
1 年Thanks Jef for reposting this. I love Dale Carnegie's writing. This is such a great reminder to "right".
Business Development Officer | Relationship Marketing | Coach | Speaker |
1 年Yes! "Our life is what our thoughts make it."