"When I first came to new york from Texas, I only had $20,000 on me, which was entrusted by my friend to invest in the stock market. I thought I knew the stock market well, but then I lost a penny. Not bad! I made some money in some businesses, but I lost all of them.
"If I lost all my money, I wouldn't care so much! But I think it is a terrible thing to lose all my friends' money, even though they are all rich. After our investment got such an unfortunate result, I was really afraid to see them again, but what I didn't expect was that they were not only pessimistic about this matter, but also hopeless optimistic.
"I began to carefully study the mistakes I made and made up my mind that before I enter the stock market again, I must first understand what the whole stock market is all about. So I found one of the most successful forecasters, Burton Cathers, and made friends with him. I believe I can learn a lot from him, because he has been a very successful person for many years, and I know that people who can have such a career cannot rely entirely on opportunity and luck.
"He asked me a few questions first and asked me what I had done before. Then tell me the most important principle of stock trading. He said:' Every stock I buy in the market has a minimum standard that I can't pay any more. For example, when I bought every share of 50 yuan stock, I immediately stipulated that the minimum standard I could not pay was 45 yuan money. "That is to say, if the stock price falls to 5 yuan, which is lower than the purchase price, it will be sold immediately, so that the loss can be limited to 5 yuan money.
"If you buy it wisely," the master continued, "you may earn an average of 65,438+00 yuan, even in 25 yuan and 50 yuan. Therefore, after limiting your losses to 5 yuan, you can make a lot of money even if more than half of your judgments are wrong. "
"I immediately learned this method and have been using it ever since. This method has saved thousands of dollars for me and my clients.
"After a while, I found that this so-called' so far' principle can also be used outside the stock market. I began to set a "so far" limit for worries other than finance. I put a "so far" limit on everything that bothers me and makes me unhappy. The result is unbelievable.
"For example, I often have lunch with a friend who is very unpunctual. He used to come after half of my lunch time, and finally I told him that I would use the principle of "stop here" when I encountered problems now. I told him that the time limit for waiting for you was 10 minutes. If you arrive in 10 minutes, our lunch appointment will be ruined-you can't find me. "
Ladies and gentlemen, I hope I learned to use this "stop here" restriction many, many years ago to solve my impatience, my temper, my desire for self-adaptation, my regret and all mental and emotional pressures. Why didn't I think of catching every situation that might destroy my inner peace before? Why don't you say to yourself, "It's only worth having such a snack-there's no need to worry more"?
However, at least I think there is one thing I have done well, and it is a very serious situation-a crisis in my life-when I almost saw my dream, my plan for the future and my years of work go down the drain. Here's the thing:
In my early thirties, I decided to write novels all my life and wanted to be Frank Rislow, Jack London or Hardy. I was full of confidence at that time. I lived in Europe for two years. In the days after World War I, it was very rare to live in dollars in Europe. I stayed there for two years, engaged in my creation. I named this book "Blizzard", which was a great success, because all publishers were as indifferent as a whistling blizzard. My heart almost stopped beating when my agent told me that this work was worthless and that I had no talent and talent for writing novels. I left his office at a loss, even if he hit me with a stick, it wouldn't surprise me more. I was shocked. I found myself at a crossroads in my life and had to make a very important decision. What should I do? Which direction should I turn? It was a few weeks before I woke up from this daze. At that time, I had never heard of the phrase "put a' stop here' limit on your worries", but in retrospect, that's exactly what I did at that time. I regard the two years I worked hard to write that novel as a valuable experience, and then move on from there. I returned to my old job, organizing and teaching adult education courses, and writing biographies and non-fiction books in my spare time.
Am I glad I made such a decision? Now whenever I think of that, I proudly want to dance in the street. I can honestly say that since then, I have never regretted not being Hardy's second.
One night 65,438+0,000 years ago, when a bird was chirping in the Woods near Walden Lake, Thoreau dipped his quill pen in his ink and wrote in his diary: "The price of a thing, which I call the total value of life, needs to be exchanged on the spot or for a long time."
In other words, if we pay too much for a part of our lives, we are fools. This is the tragedy of Gilbert and Sullivan: they know how to create happy lyrics and music scores, but they don't know how to find happiness in life. They wrote many operettas that the world likes very much, but they couldn't control their temper. They argued about the price of carpets for years. Sullivan bought a new carpet for their theater, and Gilbert was very angry when he saw the bill. This matter even went to court, and they never talked to each other until their death. After Sullivan wrote the new opera, he sent it to Gilbert, who filled in the lyrics and sent it back to Sullivan. Once, when they wanted to take a curtain call together, they stood on both sides of the stage and bowed in different directions, so they didn't have to look at each other. They didn't know that they should set a "so far" minimum value in each other's unhappiness, but Lincoln did it.
Once, during the American Civil War, several friends of Lincoln attacked some of his enemies. Lincoln said, "You feel more about personal grievances than I do. Maybe I think it is too little. " But I never thought it was worth it. One really has no time to spend half one's life arguing. If that man stops attacking me, I will never remember his revenge again. "
I wish my old aunt Edith had Lincoln's spirit of forgiveness. She lives on a mortgaged farm with Uncle Frank. There is poor soil, poor irrigation and poor harvest. Their life is very sad, and they have to scrimp and save every moment. But Aunt Edith likes to buy some curtains and other small things to decorate her home. She bought these things on credit from a small grocery store in Maryville, Missouri. Uncle Frank is very worried about their debts. He attaches great importance to his personal reputation and doesn't want to get into debt. So he secretly told the grocery store owner not to give credit to his aunt again. When she heard about it, she lost her temper-almost 50 years after that, she is still losing her temper. I heard her say it once-not once, but many times. The last time I saw her, she was over 70 years old and almost 80 years old. I said to her, "Aunt Edith, it is wrong for Uncle Frank to humiliate you like this, but don't you really think that you have been complaining for almost half a century since that incident, which is much worse than what he did?"
Aunt Edith has paid too much for these unpleasant memories. What she paid was her inner peace for half her life.
When Franklin was young, he made a mistake that he never forgot for 70 years. When he was 7 years old, he fell in love with a whistle, so he excitedly ran into the toy store, put all the change on the counter and bought the whistle without asking the price. "Then I went home," he wrote to his friend 70 years later, "whistling around the house, and I was very proud of the whistle I bought." But when his brothers and sisters found out that he had paid more for the whistle, everyone made fun of him. As he later said, "I cried."
Many years later, Franklin became a world-famous figure and became the American ambassador to France. He still remembers that because he paid more for the whistle, he got more pain than the pleasure brought by the whistle.
What Franklin learned in this class is very simple. "When I grew up," he said, "I saw many human behaviors. I think I have met many people who have paid too much for whistles. In short, I think human suffering is partly caused by their misjudgment of the value of things, that is, they pay more money for whistles. "
Gilbert and Sullivan paid too much for their whistles, so did my aunt Edith, and so did I personally-in many cases. And the immortal Tolstoy, the author of two of the world's greatest novels, War and Peace and Anna karenin. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Tolstoy was "probably the most respected figure in the world" in the last 20 years of his life. In the 20 years before his death, his admirers kept coming to his house, hoping to see him, hear his voice and even touch the corner of his clothes. Everything he said was recorded in a notebook, as if it were an Oracle. But in life, Tolstoy, 70, is not as clever as Franklin, 7. He has no brains at all. Why am I saying this?
Tolstoy married a woman he loved very much. In fact, they are very happy together. They often kneel down and pray to God to let them continue to live as a fairy couple. But Tolstoy married a woman who was naturally jealous. She often pretends to be a country girl to spy on his actions and even sneaks into the forest to meet him. They had many terrible quarrels, and she was even jealous of her children. She once grabbed a gun and punched a hole in her daughter's photo. She would roll on the floor, hold a bottle of opium to her mouth, threaten to commit suicide, and let her children shrink in the corner of the room and scream in fear.
What did Tolstoy do? If he jumps up and breaks the furniture, I won't blame him-because he has reason to be so angry. But what he did was much worse. He keeps a personal diary! In the letter, he blamed everything on his wife. This is his whistle. He made up his mind that the next generation would forgive him and blame all the mistakes on his wife. How did his wife treat him? Of course, she tore up his diary and burned it. She wrote a diary herself, in which she blamed Tolstoy for all her mistakes. She even wrote a novel. Whose fault is it? In that novel, she described her husband as a family destroyer, while she herself was a martyr.
How did everything turn out? Why did these two people turn their only home into Tolstoy's "madhouse"? Obviously, there are several reasons. One of them is that they are eager to attract attention. Yes, what they are most worried about is what others think. Do we care who is to blame? No, we will only focus on our own problems and will not waste a minute thinking about Tolstoy's family. How much these two boring people paid for their whistle. They have lived in a terrible hell for 50 years, just because neither of them has the brain to say "Stop arguing", because neither of them has enough value judgment, so they can say, "Let's end this matter at once, we are wasting our lives, so let's say" enough now. "
Yes, I really believe that this is one of the biggest secrets of obtaining psychological peace-having correct values. And I also believe that as long as we can set a personal standard-that is, what is worthwhile compared with our life, then 50% of our worries can be eliminated immediately.
So, get rid of the habit of worrying before it destroys you. At any time, if what we want to spend money on is uneconomical compared with life, let's stop and ask ourselves the following three questions:
1 What does my worry have to do with myself?
Where should I set a "so far" minimum and forget all about it?
How much should I pay for this whistle? Do I pay more than it is worth?
-Quoted from The Complete Works of the Advantages of Human Nature by Yanbian People's Publishing House.