From Dale Carnegie’s The Leader in You:
“Many years ago, a neighbor rang my doorbell one evening and urged me and my family to be vaccinated against smallpox. He was only one of thousands of volunteers who were ringing doorbells all over New York City. Frightened people stood in line for hours at a time to be vaccinated. Vaccinations stations were opened not only in hospitals, but also in firehouses, police precincts, and in large industrial plants. More than 2,000 doctors and nurses worked feverishly night and day, vaccinating crowds. Eight people in New York City had smallpox—and two had died. Two deaths out of a population of almost 8 million.
“Now, I had lived in New York City for many, many years, and no one had ever yet rung my doorbell to warn me against the emotional sickness of worry—an illness that, during the same time period, had caused 10,000 times more damage than smallpox.
“No doorbell ringer had ever warned me that one person out of 10 now living in…[the] United States will have a nervous breakdown—induced in the vast majority of cases by worry and emotional conflicts. So I am writing this…to ring your doorbell and warn you.
“Please take to heart the words of Dr. Alexis Carrel: “Those who do not know how to fight worry die young.”
Wow, a cautionary tale for us all! It’s so easy to worry about writing instead of just writing, isn’t it? We worry that we’re taking too long to finish a story. We worry that if we send it out, it will be rejected and won’t find a home. We worry that we’re not good enough to do what we’re trying to do.
The list goes on and on. When worry steps inside our heart and our psyche, creativity often goes out the window. A relaxed mind is a creative mind. You can’t be worried and creative at the same time.
So let’s take a tip from my young heroine, Britomar. She and her guardian Madern have hung a Basket of Cares and Sorrows on the branch of an old oak by their cottage. And every day, they drop their woes and worries in the basket. They leave them outside their door—they don’t being them inside their home.
We can do the same. It’s simple. Just write your worries down on a slip of paper and drop them in a basket or better yet, a jar. Then put on the lid and literally put all your worries outside your door or in another room. Don’t let them invade your writing space.
Worry never wrote a sonnet or a song. It never creates anything, except misery and anxiety. These have no place in our writing rooms—let them go and then, relaxed and free, write on!
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