Page 217 - Napoleon Hill Think and Grow Rich Full Book | Success Learned

prevalent among the aged, but sometimes the more youthful are victims of it.
The greatest of all remedies for the fear of death is a BURNING DESIRE FOR
ACHIEVEMENT, backed by useful service to others. A busy person seldom has
time to think about dying. He finds life too thrilling to worry about death. Some-
times the fear of death is closely associated with the Fear of Poverty, where one's
death would leave loved ones poverty-stricken. In other cases, the fear of death is
caused by illness and the consequent breaking down of physical body resistance.
The commonest causes of the fear of death are: ill -health, poverty, lack of appro-
priate occupation, disappointment over love, insanity, religious fanaticism.

OLD MAN WORRY

Worry is a state of mind based upon fear. It works slowly, but persistently. It is
insiduous and subtle. Step by step it "digs itself in" until it paralyzes one's reason-
ing faculty, destroys self-confidence and initiative. Worry is a form of sustained
fear caused by indecision therefore it is a state of mind which can be controlled.
An unsettled mind is helpless. Indecision makes an unsettled mind. Most indi-
viduals lack the willpower to reach decisions promptly, and to stand by them after
they have been made, even during normal business conditions. During periods
of economic unrest (such as the world recently experienced), the individual is
handicapped, not alone by his inherent nature to be slow at reaching decisions,
but he is influenced by the indecision of others around him who have created a
state of "mass indecision."

During the depression the whole atmosphere, all over the world, was filled with
"Fearenza" and "Worryitis," the two mental disease germs which began to spread
themselves after the Wall Street frenzy in 1929. There is only one known antidote
for these germs; it is the habit of prompt and firm DECISION. Moreover, it is an
antidote which every individual must apply for himself.

We do not worry over conditions, once we have reached a decision to follow a
definite line of action.

I once interviewed a man who was to be electrocuted two hours later. The con-
demned man was the calmest of some eight men who were in the death-cell with
him. His calmness prompted me to ask him how it felt to know that he was going
into eternity in a short while. With a smile of confidence on his face, he said, "It
feels fine.

Just think, brother, my troubles will soon be over. I have had nothing but trouble
all my life. It has been a hardship to get food and clothing. Soon I will not need

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