Book Review: How to Stop Worrying and Start Living

by: Mahatma KPosted on:

Do you know what is the illness that causes ten thousand times more damage than smallpox?

“WORRY”

Yes, doesn’t it seem quite surprising? But Yes, there is scientific evidence proving the same. This illness can be likened to a slow poison killing the nervous system.

Let me start by revealing how this book ended on my reading list. I was browsing the Amazon website for the best-selling books and apparently found this marked as one of the best sellers. Initially, it sounded strange. I looked up the author – Dale Carnegie. He is an American celebrated author of the 20th century. Well, this means the book was written somewhere in the mid-1900s. So how did a book written in the mid-1990s still be tilted as a best seller in 2023? The more I got to know about this, the more curious I became, which ultimately compelled me to peek into this book. 

And did I like it?

Absolutely!! The book includes timeless techniques to not just overcome worry but to conquer it all together and live a peaceful & happy life. No wonder why this still figures out as the best seller even in 2023.

“How to STOP Worrying and START Living? ” – Dale Carnegie

Dale Carnegie was an American writer, lecturer, and developer of famous courses in self-improvement, salesmanship, public speaking etc.

In this book, the author talks all about worry and time-tested methods to conquer worry-

  1. Facts about Worry
  2. The Basic Techniques in Analyzing Worry
  3. How to Break the Worry Habit
  4. How to handle Criticism
  5. And much more around these 

The author drives the focus through hundreds of stories of People from all walks of life who conquered worry and built a happy and peaceful life. 

Here is a curated set of time-tested techniques to handle worry that I could take notes while reading:

  1. Live in “Day-tight compartments”. Don’t stew about the future. Just live each day until bedtime.
  2. Willis H.Carrier’s 3-step formula
    1. Ask yourself, “What is the worst that can possibly happen if I can’t solve my problem?
    2. Prepare yourself mentally to accept the worst-case scenario
    3. Then calmly try to improve upon the worst- which you have already mentally agreed to accept.
  3. Galen Litchfield’s technique to get rid of worry
    1. What am I worrying about? 
    2. What can I do about it?
    3. Here is What I am going to do about it
    4. When am I going to start doing it?
  4. Crowd worries out of your mind by keeping busy. Plenty of action is one of the best therapies ever devised for curing the worry habit.
  5. Law of averages. “What are the odds against this thing happening at all ?”
  6. Put a “stop-loss” order on your worries. Decide just how much anxiety a thing may be worth – and refuse to give it any more
  7. Let the past bury its dead. Don’t saw the sawdust.
  8. And Many more

I must say, this sentence really resonated with me.

The secret of being miserable is to have the leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not.

I can’t explain how accurate this is !!!

I was fascinated by the author’s hundreds of interviews with people from all walks of life and how they managed to deal with worry. What made this book particularly unique, besides the techniques discussed, was that the author included the postal address of every person he interviewed as part of his research to prove the authenticity of his work. May be there were no privacy concerns then? 🙂

Overall, I believe this book is a masterpiece of Dale Carnegie’s research. It is a must read for anyone seeking a worry-free, happy, and peaceful life.