Some readers are going to snort at the idea of making so muchover a hackneyed proverb like “Don’t cry over spilt milk.” I knowit is trite， commonplace， and a platitude. I know you have heard ita thousand times. But I also know that these hackneyed proverbscontain the very essence of the distilled wisdom of all ages. Theyhave come out of the fiery experience of the human race andhave been handed down through countless generations. If you were to read everything that has ever been written about worryby the great scholars of all time， you would never read anythingmore basic or more profound than such hackneyed proverbs as“Don’t cross your bridges until you come to them” and “Don’t cryover spilt milk.” If we only applied those two proverbs—insteadof snorting at them—we wouldn’t need this book at all. In fact， ifwe applied most of the old proverbs， we would lead almost perfectlives. However， knowledge isn’t power until it is applied; and thepurpose of this book is not to tell you something new. The purposeof this book is to remind you of what you already know and to kickyou in the shins and inspire you to do something about applying it.
I have always admired a man like the late Fred Fuller Shedd，who had a gift for stating an old truth in a new and picturesqueway. He was editor of the Philadelphia Bulletin; and， whileaddressing a college graduating class， he asked： “How manyof you have ever sawed wood? Let’s see your hands.” Most ofthem had. Then he inquired： “How many of you have ever sawedsawdust?” No hands went up.
“Of course， you can’t saw sawdust！” Mr. Shedd exclaimed. “It’salready sawed！ And it’s the same with the past. When you startworrying about things that are over and done with， you’re merelytrying to saw sawdust.”
When Connie Mack， the grand old man of baseball， waseighty-one years old， I asked him if he had ever worried overgames that were lost.
“Oh， yes， I used to，” Connie Mack told me. “But I got over thatfoolishness long years ago. I found out it didn’t get me anywhereat all. You can’t grind any grain，” he said， “with water that hasalready gone down the creek.”
No， you can’t grind any grain—and you can’t saw any logs withwater that has already gone down the creek. But you can saw wrinkles in your face and ulcers in your stomach. I had dinnerwith Jack Dempsey last Thanksgiving; and he told me over theturkey and cranberry sauce about the fight in which he lost theheavyweight championship to Tunney Naturally， it was a blow tohis ego.
“In the midst of that fight，” he told me， “I suddenly realisedI had become an old man… At the end of the tenth round， Iwas still on my feet， but that was about all. My face was puffedand cut， and my eyes were nearly closed… I saw the refereeraise Gene Tunney’s hand in token of victory… I was no longerchampion of the world. I started back in the rain-back throughthe crowd to my dressing-room. As I passed， some people tried tograb my hand. Others had tears in their eyes.
“A year later， I fought Tunney again. But it was no use. I wasthrough for ever. It was hard to keep from worrying about it all，but I said to myself： ‘I’m not going to live in the past or cry overspilt milk. I am going to take this blow on the chin and not let itfloor me.’”
And that is precisely what Jack Dempsey did. How? By sayingto himself over and over： “I won’t worry about the past”？ No， thatwould merely have forced him to think of his past worries. He didit by accepting and writing off his defeat and then concentratingon plans for the future. He did it by running the Jack DempseyRestaurant on Broadway and the Great Northern Hotel on57th Street. He did it by promoting prize fights and givingboxing exhibitions. He did it by getting so busy on somethingconstructive that he had neither the time nor the temptation toworry about the past. “I have had a better time during the last tenyears，” Jack Dempsey said， “than I had when I was champion.”
As I read history and biography and observe people undertrying circumstances， I am constantly astonished and inspired by some people’s ability to write off their worries and tragedies andgo on living fairly happy lives.
I once paid a visit to Sing Sing， and the thing that astonishedme most was that the prisoners there appeared to be about ashappy as the average person on the outside. I commented on itto Lewis E. Lawes—then warden of Sing Sing—and he told methat when criminals first arrive at Sing Sing， they are likely to beresentful and bitter. But after a few months， the majority of themore intelligent ones write off their misfortunes and settle downand accept prison life calmly and make the best of it. WardenLawes told me about one Sing Sing prisoner—a gardener—whosang as he cultivated the vegetables and flowers inside the prisonwalls.
So why waste the tears? Of course， we have been guilty ofblunders and absurdities！ And so what? Who hasn’t? EvenNapoleon lost one-third of all the important battles he fought.
Perhaps our batting average is no worse than Napoleon’s. Whoknows?
And， anyhow， all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’tput the past together again. So let’s remember Rule 6：Don’t try to saw sawdust.
