I read this about worry in Norman Vincent Peale‘s wonderful book The True Joy of Positive Living.

I think you’re going to learn a lot from this.

It is the custom of my church to have the minister’s portrait painted. The artist selected to do mine was Howard Chandler Christy, then at the apex of his illustrious career.

Mr. Christy was a spiritually minded man with an inspiring personality. He was a robust and gutsy person. Even in the dead of winter he would appear in the streets near Central Park West, hatless and coatless, his face ruddy in the cold wind, and greet you with a great shout and laugh.

One day while I was sitting for him and thinking of a sermon for the upcoming Sunday on the subject of worry, I asked him, “Howard, did you ever worry?”

“Not on your life. I don’t believe in it.”

“But haven’t you ever worried?” I asked.

“Oh,” he responded with a laugh, “only once and that was because everyone seemed to be worrying and I thought I must be missing something. So I decided to set aside one day on which to worry. I had a good night’s sleep and a big breakfast, for I figured one should not try to worry on an empty stomach. Then I started worrying, but about ten o’clock in the morning I couldn’t make head or tail of it and gave it up as a bad job. And I have never worried since.”

“But how can you say that you have worried only once and for only a brief time?” I asked wonderingly.

The answer in his own zestful style was, “You see, every morning I spend fifteen minutes filling my mind full of God and so there is no room left for worry.”

And with that, your days of worrying should be over.

Bob Proctor wrote that we must “Let go and let God.”

Charles F. Haanel instructed us in Week Four of The Master Key System to “let go of all adverse conditions, such as hatred, anger, worry, jealousy, envy, sorrow, trouble, or disappointment of any kind.”

He continues in points 31 and 32 –

31. You may say that you cannot “let go” of these things, but you can. You can do so by mentally determining to do so by voluntary intention and persistence.

32. The reason that some cannot do this is because they allow themselves to be controlled by the emotions instead of by their intellect. But the will guided by the intellect will gain the victory. You will not succeed the first time you try, but practice makes perfect, in this as in everything else, and you must succeed in dismissing, eliminating, and completely destroying these negative and destructive thoughts because they are the seed which is constantly germinating into discordant conditions of every conceivable kind and description.

Worrying is for suckers.

What will be, will be.

You do your best . . .

. . . you see what happens . . .

. . . you recalibrate . . .

. . . you do your best again.

You do that enough times, you win.

—

Don’t worry; be happy.