Chapter 37: Let It Go

Do not hang on to the things that keep you back, that make you unhappy. Let go of the worry; let go of the anxiety; let go of the scolding, fretting, and fuming; let go of criticism; let go of fear; let go of the anxious, over-strenuous life; let go of selfish living; let go of the rubbish, the useless, the foolish, the silly; let go of the shams, the shoddy, the false; let go the straining to keep up appearances; let go of the superficial; let go of the vice that cripples, the false thinking that demoralizes; and you will be surprised to see how much lighter and freer and truer you are to run the race, and how much surer of the goal.

If you have had an unfortunate experience, forget it. If you have made a failure in speech, your song, your book, your article, if you have been placed in an embarrassing position, if you have fallen and hurt yourself by a false step, if you have been slandered and abused, do not dwell upon it. There is not a single redeeming feature in these memories, and the presence of their ghosts will rob you of many a happy hour. There is nothing in it. Drop them. Forget them. Wipe them out of your mind forever. If you have been indiscreet, imprudent, if you have been talked about, if your reputation has been injured so that you fear you can never outgrow it or redeem it, do not drag the hideous shadows, the rattling skeletons about with you Rub them off from the slate of memory. Wipe them out. Forget them. Start with a clean slate and spend all your energies in keeping it clean for the future.

Resolve that whatever you do or do not do, you will not be haunted by skeletons, that you will not cherish shadows. They must get out and give place to the sunshine. Determine that you will have nothing to do with discords, that every one of them must get out of your mind. No matter how formidable or persistent, wipe them out. Forget them. Have nothing to do with them. Do not let the little enemies — worrying and foreboding, anxiety and regrets — sap your energy, for this is your capital for future achievement.

A gloomy face, a sour expression, a worrying mind, a fretting disposition, are proofs of your failure to control yourself. _They are the earmarks of .jour weakness, a confession of your inability to cope with your environment. Drive them away. Scatter them to the four winds. Dominate yourself. Do not let your enemies sit on the throne. Do your own governing.

“Dismiss from your mind every suggestion that has to do with illness. If you have had an operation, — it is over, let it glide into the shadows, the background of memory. Do not dwell upon it, do not talk about it.”

Whatever is disagreeable, whatever irritates, nags, destroys your balance of mind, forget it — thrust it out. It has nothing to do with you now. You have better use for your time than to waste it in regrets and worry, in useless trifles. Let go the rubbish. Make war upon despondency, if you are subject to it. Drive the blues out of your mind as you would a thief out of the house.

Shut the door in the face of all your enemies, and keep it shut. Do not wait for cheerfulness to come to you. Go after it; entertain it; never let it go.

A despondent young writer says that while he was in the West, he used to watch the cows on the prairies and he could not help envying them. “I used often to heave a sigh and wish I were a cow.” “What keeps them so contented?” he asked the farmer. "Oh, they are enjoying themselves chewing the cud," was the reply.

The trouble with many of us is, we do not enjoy chewing the cud, — letting go of the aches and pains, the anxieties, and just enjoying ourselves. We cannot bear to let go. We cling like a thrifty housewife, who cannot bear to throw away a rag or a scrap of anything, but piles the useless rubbish in the attic. We cannot bear to let go of our enemies. We cannot seem to kick out of doors the things that worry and fret and chafe, and yet never do us any good.

The American people do not know how to let go. We keep our muscles tense and nerves up to such a pitch that it is the hardest thing in the world for us to drop things. We chafe and worry and fret instead of just resting without being haunted by the skeletons of care, of anxiety, and of business.

Who can estimate the medicinal power of one cheerful life in the home, — of one serene, balanced soul?

"My young partners do the work and I do the laughing, and I commend to you the thought that there is very little success where there is little laughter," says Andrew Carnegie. The workman who rejoices in his work and laughs away his discomfort is the man who is sure to rise, for it is what we do easily and what we like to do that we do well.

The most of us make our backs ache carrying useless, foolish burdens. We carry luggage and rubbish that are of no earthly use, but which sap our strength and keep us jaded and tired to no purpose. If we could only learn to hold on to the things worthwhile, and drop the rubbish, — let go the useless, the foolish, the silly, the hamperers, the things that hinder, — we should not only make progress but we should keep happy and harmonious.