it.
One person out of every eight dies of cancer. If I had wanted something to worry about, I should have worried about cancer -instead of being killed by lightning or being buried alive.
To be sure, I have been talking about the worries of youth and adolescence. But many of our adult worries are almost as absurd. You and I could probably eliminate nine-tenths of our worries right now if we would cease our fretting long enough to discover whether, by the law of averages, there was any real justification for our worries.
The most famous insurance company on earth-Lloyd's of London-has made countless millions out of the tendency of everybody to worry about things that rarely happen. Lloyd's of London bets people that the disasters they are worrying about will never occur. However, they don't call it betting. They call it insurance. But it is really betting based on the law of averages. This great insurance firm has been going strong for two hundred years; and unless human nature changes, it will still be going strong fifty centuries from now by insuring shoes and ships and sealing-wax against disasters that, by the law of average, don't happen nearly so often as people imagine.
If we examine the law of averages, we will often be astounded at the facts we uncover. For example, if I knew that during the next five years I would have to fight in a battle as bloody as the Battle of Gettysburg, I would be terrified. I would take out all the life insurance I could get. I would draw up my will and set all my earthly affairs in order. I would say: "I'll probably never live through that battle, so I had better make the most of the few years I have left." Yet the facts are that, according to the law of averages, it is just as dangerous, just as fatal, to try to live from age fifty to age fifty-five in peace-time as it was to fight in the Battle of Gettysburg. What I am trying to say is this: in times of peace, just as many people die per thousand between the ages of fifty and fifty-five as were killed per thousand among the 163,000 soldiers who fought at Gettysburg.
I wrote several chapters of this book at James Simpson's Num-Ti-Gah Lodge, on the shore of Bow Lake in the Canadian Rockies. While stopping there one summer, I met Mr. and Mrs. Herbert H. Salinger, of 2298 Pacific Avenue, San Francisco. Mrs. Salinger, a poised, serene woman, gave me the impression that she had never worried. One evening in front of the roaring fireplace, I asked her if she had ever been troubled by worry. "Troubled by it?" she said. "My life was almost ruined by it. Before I learned to conquer worry, I lived through eleven years of self-made hell. I was irritable and hot-tempered. I lived under terrific tension. I would take the bus every week from my home in San Mateo to shop in San Francisco. But even while shopping, I worried myself into a dither: maybe I had left the electric iron connected on the ironing board. Maybe the house had caught fire. Maybe the maid had run off and left the children. Maybe they had been out on their bicycles and been killed by a car. In the midst of my shopping, I would often worry myself into a cold perspiration and rush out and take the bus home to see if everything was all right. No wonder my first marriage ended in disaster.
"My second husband is a lawyer-a quiet, analytical man who never worries about anything. When I became tense and anxious, he would say to me: 'Relax. Let's think this out. ... What are you really worrying about? Let's examine the law of averages and see whether or not it is likely to happen.'
"For example, I remember the time we were driving from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to the Carlsbad Caverns-driving on a dirt road-when we were caught in a terrible rainstorm.
"The car was slithering and sliding. We couldn't control it. I was positive we would slide off into one of the ditches that flanked the road; but my husband kept repeating to me: 'I am driving very slowly. Nothing serious is likely
One person out of every eight dies of cancer. If I had wanted something to worry about, I should have worried about cancer -instead of being killed by lightning or being buried alive.
To be sure, I have been talking about the worries of youth and adolescence. But many of our adult worries are almost as absurd. You and I could probably eliminate nine-tenths of our worries right now if we would cease our fretting long enough to discover whether, by the law of averages, there was any real justification for our worries.
The most famous insurance company on earth-Lloyd's of London-has made countless millions out of the tendency of everybody to worry about things that rarely happen. Lloyd's of London bets people that the disasters they are worrying about will never occur. However, they don't call it betting. They call it insurance. But it is really betting based on the law of averages. This great insurance firm has been going strong for two hundred years; and unless human nature changes, it will still be going strong fifty centuries from now by insuring shoes and ships and sealing-wax against disasters that, by the law of average, don't happen nearly so often as people imagine.
If we examine the law of averages, we will often be astounded at the facts we uncover. For example, if I knew that during the next five years I would have to fight in a battle as bloody as the Battle of Gettysburg, I would be terrified. I would take out all the life insurance I could get. I would draw up my will and set all my earthly affairs in order. I would say: "I'll probably never live through that battle, so I had better make the most of the few years I have left." Yet the facts are that, according to the law of averages, it is just as dangerous, just as fatal, to try to live from age fifty to age fifty-five in peace-time as it was to fight in the Battle of Gettysburg. What I am trying to say is this: in times of peace, just as many people die per thousand between the ages of fifty and fifty-five as were killed per thousand among the 163,000 soldiers who fought at Gettysburg.
I wrote several chapters of this book at James Simpson's Num-Ti-Gah Lodge, on the shore of Bow Lake in the Canadian Rockies. While stopping there one summer, I met Mr. and Mrs. Herbert H. Salinger, of 2298 Pacific Avenue, San Francisco. Mrs. Salinger, a poised, serene woman, gave me the impression that she had never worried. One evening in front of the roaring fireplace, I asked her if she had ever been troubled by worry. "Troubled by it?" she said. "My life was almost ruined by it. Before I learned to conquer worry, I lived through eleven years of self-made hell. I was irritable and hot-tempered. I lived under terrific tension. I would take the bus every week from my home in San Mateo to shop in San Francisco. But even while shopping, I worried myself into a dither: maybe I had left the electric iron connected on the ironing board. Maybe the house had caught fire. Maybe the maid had run off and left the children. Maybe they had been out on their bicycles and been killed by a car. In the midst of my shopping, I would often worry myself into a cold perspiration and rush out and take the bus home to see if everything was all right. No wonder my first marriage ended in disaster.
"My second husband is a lawyer-a quiet, analytical man who never worries about anything. When I became tense and anxious, he would say to me: 'Relax. Let's think this out. ... What are you really worrying about? Let's examine the law of averages and see whether or not it is likely to happen.'
"For example, I remember the time we were driving from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to the Carlsbad Caverns-driving on a dirt road-when we were caught in a terrible rainstorm.
"The car was slithering and sliding. We couldn't control it. I was positive we would slide off into one of the ditches that flanked the road; but my husband kept repeating to me: 'I am driving very slowly. Nothing serious is likely
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