Microsoft Word who will cry when u die doc

 
 
 

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12. 
Schedule Worry Breaks
 
After I wrote The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, I was flooded with letters from readers who saw their lives 
change from the lessons they discovered on becoming happier, more fulfilled and more peaceful in these stress 
– crazed times. Many of these letters came from people who work lives had grown so busy that they spent most 
of their free time worrying about things that should have been left at the office. They had lost the ability to 
laugh, love and share joy with their families because challenges at work were consuming them. 
 
Too many people are spending the best years of their lives stuck in a state of constant worry. They worry 
about their jobs, the bills, the environment and their kids. And yet we all know deep in our hearts that most of 
the things we worry about never happen. It’s like that great saying of Mark Twain’s, “I’ve had a lot of trouble in 
my life, some of which actually happened.” My father, a particularly wise man who has had a deep influence on 
my own life, once told me that the Sanskrit character for funeral pyre is strikingly similar to the Sanskrit 
character for worry. “I’m surprised,” I replied. “You shouldn’t be, son,” he gently offered. “One burns the dead 
while the other burns the living.” 
 
I know how dramatically the worry habit can reduce one’s quality of life from personal experience. 
While in my late twenties, I was on the so – called fast track to success. I had received two law degrees from 
one of the country’s most prestigious law schools, served as the law clerk for a Chief Justice and was handling 
highly complex cases as a litigation lawyer. But I was often working too hard and worrying too much. I was 
waking up on Monday morning with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach and a deep sense that I was 
wasting my talents on work that was not aligned with the person I was. So I began to search for ways to 
improve my life, turning first to the self – help and life leadership literature, where I found a wealth of lessons 
for a more balanced, peace – filled and meaningful existence. 
 
One of the simple strategies I learned to conquer the worry habit was to schedule specific times to worry 
– what I now call “worry breaks.” If we are facing a difficulty, it is easy to spend all our waking hours focusing 
on it. Instead, I recommend that you schedule fixed times to worry, say, thirty minutes every evening. During 
this worry session, you may wallow in your problems and brood over your difficulties. But after that period 
ends, you must train yourself to leave your troubles behind and do something more productive, such as going 
for a walk in natural surroundings or reading an inspirational book or having a heart – to – heart conversation 
with someone you love. If during other times of the day you feel the need to worry, jot down what you want to 
worry about in a notebook which you can then bring to your next worry break. This simple but powerful 
technique will help you gradually reduce the amount of time you spend worrying and eventually serve to 
eliminate this habit forever.