If one were to read even a few things I've written over the years, it would be immediately apparent that I've long been on record as one who generally dismisses typical 'self-help' books as merely a collection of words that are pleasant to hear, rehashed from book-to-book occasionally, so the public will pay for the same words more than once.  However the astute observer might also note that, in order for me to fashion that judgement, I would've had to have read at least a few.  

True enough.   

And though most were worth far less in inspiration than I paid for them in dollars, there were a few stories among them that stayed with me.  One of those was told by Dale Carnegie, about the infamous oil magnate and founder of Standard Oil, John D. Rockefeller.  

As background to the story, Rockefeller's net worth in 1917, adjusted to today's dollars, was more than 340 billion dollars.  Staggering, when one considers it's nearly four times that of the wealthiest human being alive today.  Looked-at another way, if the 2017 GDPs for all nations (all the goods and services produced by a country in a year) were listed alongside John D. Rockefeller's net worth, today his wealth would rank 32nd out of the world's 195 countries.

As Carnegie tells it, this great fortune - and the massive monopoly known as The Standard Oil Company - was already built by the time Rockefeller was forty-three years old.  He lived, simply and solely, for the accumulation of money.

 He eschewed recreation.  Though he owned property, yachts, possessions of all kinds...they were there for one purpose:  The entertainment of business leaders he could eventually devour for more wealth.  He obsessed over even the smallest of sums, once pacing the floor, sleepless, for an entire night, over a shipment of grain he had made across the Great Lakes.  

The $150 asked by the insurance company to guarantee the load was exorbitant, he thought, so he refused to take out a policy.  But all night he fretted over his decision, worrying his $40,000 commodity shipment might be lost to shipwreck.  In the morning, when his partner arrived at work, Rockefeller finally demanded he take out the insurance policy, even though the grain was already enroute.  The $150 was spent, the grain insured, and the shipment made it to shore safely.  But when Rockefeller heard the news that the boat had arrived at the destination without incident, he didn't experience happiness or relief:  Instead, he was so upset at having wasted the $150 on cargo that would've arrived unharmed anyway, that he immediately went home and was bedridden.

He stopped at nothing to create the largest business the world had ever seen.  Per the New York Times in 1937: 

 “He was accused of crushing out competition, getting rich on rebates from railroads, bribing men to spy on competing companies, of making secret agreements, of coercing rivals to join the Standard Oil Company under threat of being forced out of business, building up enormous fortunes on the ruins of other men, and so on.”

His life was reduced to one worry, and that worry was with him everywhere, day and night:  Losing his money.  Preventing that from happening, by gaining ever more of it, became his sole focus.

But his relentless pursuit of more did not fail to exact a price from Rockefeller.  By the time he was fifty-three, he was not only the world's richest man, he was the most hated.  The press.  His competition.  His employees.  All resented the pain he had impressed on them.  And slowly, the pressure he had long exerted on others was beginning to be directed back toward him in a different form.  

He developed a digestive disorder so severe that he could barely eat or drink.  He lost his eyelashes.  His eyebrows.  The trademark short, silver hair that Rockefeller displays in many photos, was actually a wig.  (Clearly, baldness wasn't considered nearly as sophisticated and dashingly-handsome then as it is now).  His gait was stooped and arthritic.  He looked thirty years older than he was.  And, by all accounts, he was dying.

Examinations, interviews and tests told his team of doctors one thing:  John D. Rockefeller was suffering from a malady that he alone could cure.  His life of stress and worry and competition was causing his focus to become so narrow, his direction so inward and selfish, that it began to physically consume him.  The doctors gave him three rules for daily existence from that point forward:

1)  Avoid worry.  Never worry about anything, under any circumstance.

2)  Relax, and take plenty of mild exercise in the open air.

3)  Watch your diet.  Always stop eating while you're still hungry.

And Rockefeller followed those rules.  He took up golf.  Gardening.  Singing.  He used those times of relaxation to look around.  To consider.  To see the plight of the world beyond capitalism.  He began to give his money away, ultimately giving millions to humanitarian causes.  To universities.  To fighting diseases.  Penicillin was developed largely with his money.  The Plague, hookworm, diphtheria, tuberculosis, spinal meningitis.  All virtually eliminated, in part because of Rockefeller's contributions.  

And Rockefeller himself?  He was transformed.  From touching the fringes of the coat of death at 53, he went on to live until he was 98 years old.

There was a season during which I spent a lot of time worrying.  It's all relative, of course.  What I mean to say is that I once spent even more time worrying than I do now.  I still waste too many hours concerned over whether I did or didn't do the right thing.  Over what the future will be like for my kids.  Troubled, during the quiet hours, over regrets I already have, and pondering how to minimize any I might have in the future.  

The older I get, I notice more aches and pains and symptoms.  The reason for that, of course, is that there are more of them now.  But I also realize I'm of an age where an errant twinge could spell something more concerning.  I don't go to the doctor over those concerns, obviously.  Any self-respecting man knows the doctor's purpose is to confirm your fears.  Not going simply ensures all news is good news.  

The reasoning behind worry isn't particularly solid.  I realize that.  I'd be willing to bet you do, too.  But as words of comfort go, the old saw about not worrying over the things you can't control has always rung a bit hollow to me.  What else is there to worry about?  Why would I worry over things I can control?  

And the time-wasting effect of worry is profound.  You and I know that, too.  Besides the fact that worry adds not a minute to our lives, and in truth subtracts heavily from the enjoyment of the unknown hours we have been given, there exists a very certain uncertainty:  Few of the things we worry about ever actually come to pass.  

Mark Twain is well-known as a great writer, but remains undervalued as a comedian and philosopher.  Eminently-gifted at distilling folksy one-liners out of complex truths, he had this to say about worry:  "I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened."

It is a secondary result of control - or more precisely, the lack of it - this need for worry.  And that's how we often experience it, isn't it?  As a need.  It feels, to the worrier, that we're actually doing something about our fears.  That we are guarding ourselves against what might happen, by deeply considering every possible eventuality.  Or that we are steeling ourselves against future pain or disappointment by experiencing those things, on some level, now;  on our terms.   By bringing an imagined reality - however false - to the things we worry about,  it feels to us that we are taking an offensive position, thereby removing the sting of the event, in the unlikely occasion it should ever actually occur.

It's pointless and silly, when one considers worry at its most basic form.

But like most any other thought or impulse our brains can devise, I'm convinced there's an element to worry that can be good for us.  In fact I believe it can lead to it's own solution.  At it's onset, worry simply tells us that, real or exaggerated, there exists something - maybe many somethings - that appears to us as a threat.  What we do with that idea is what determines whether we will move forward, or become prisoner to the cyclical thought worry can produce.  If we begin to dwell on thoughts of potential pain, humiliation or failure, worry has won.  It has become the guiding force in our lives.

And yet, on the other hand, if we fail to think, concretely and specifically, about what it is that worries us - and why - we will be mired for all time in the fear of whatever it was our worry was telling us we should avoid.  Stuck.  Feeling and experiencing, over and over, the pain we might experience once if we would just push past the fear, and do the thing we're afraid of.  

Sitting quietly and considering the fear - the worry - is what allows us to address, once and for all, the cause.  Just as you begin to distrust people who are dishonest with you, sometimes only subconsciously, we begin to distrust ourselves;  our judgment, our own instincts, our constant subconscious narrative, for the same reason.  We know that what concerns us is still under there.  Beneath the diversion of television.  Of activity.  Of parties with friends and loud music and alcohol.  Lying to ourselves, and burying or dulling our thoughts only lasts for a brief minute.  That's why we have to keep doing it.  All addiction has a reason, and the reason is always diversion from some truth.

All things can be fine in moderation, but when used to silence the noise of worry, we are never free to stop.  A few seconds of silence becomes the fear.  We can't bear to face the lies we've told ourselves.  The idea that, deep within, we might be cowards, running away from our own demons, is too much to ponder.

And yet, your house will not paint itself.  Your car will not change its own oil.  And we can never ask worry to leave us, without first looking it in the face.  We cannot face an enemy, unless we finally turn to see what the enemy looks like.

The solution is reflection.  It is not to divert-from, but to think about.  Not in a cyclical way, but by facing the worry head-on, and then simply living through it.  But to do that, we need to notice everything about that which we fear.  Everything.  Observe it objectively for what it is, and no more.  But that also means noticing both sides of the issue.  Such as the fact that what you worried about in the past likely didn't happen.  Or if it did, it happened in a way you could've never predicted - with blessings - rather than destruction - its ultimate result.  

We live, like it or not, at the will of a God who is powerful beyond all understanding.  Who is able to create blessings from pain. Purpose from failure.  Hope from resignation.

And He will, beyond all doubt, use that thing we fear - that wandering through the dark forest of worry - to create from our timidity, from our cowardice, from our worry:  Quiet.  Quiet of spirit, of mind, of heart.  And strength.  One that remains to us unknown until that time in which we consider our worry for what it is, and choose to leave it at His feet, and walk away.

Because then - and only then - we will have confronted - and lived through - that which once seemed too great a monster to face.  And put the blade through its heart.