Chapter 4 - How To Analyze And Solve Worry Problems

I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew):
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
-Rudyard Kipling
----
Will the magic formula of Willis H. Carrier, described in Part One, Chapter 2, solve all
worry problems? No, of course not. Then what is the answer? The answer is that we
must equip ourselves to deal with different kinds of worries by learning the three basic
steps of problem analysis. The three steps are:
1. Get the facts.
2. Analyse the facts.
3. Arrive at a decision-and then act on that decision.
Obvious stuff? Yes, Aristotle taught it-and used it. And you and I must use it too if we
are going to solve the problems that are harassing us and turning our days and nights
into veritable hells.
Let's take the first rule: Get the facts. Why is it so important to get the facts? Because
unless we have the facts we can't possibly even attempt to solve our problem
intelligently. Without the facts, all we can do is stew around in confusion. My idea? No,
that was the idea of the late Herbert E. Hawkes, Dean of Columbia College, Columbia
University, for twenty-two years. He had helped two hundred thousand students solve
their worry problems; and he told me that "confusion is the chief cause of worry". He
put it this way-he said: "Half the worry in the world is caused by people trying to make
decisions before they have sufficient knowledge on which to base a decision. For
example," he said, "if I have a problem which has to be faced at three o'clock next
Tuesday, I refuse even to try to make a decision about it until next Tuesday arrives. In
the meantime, I concentrate on getting all the facts that bear on the problem. I don't
worry," he said, "I don't agonise over my problem. I don't lose any sleep. I simply
concentrate on getting the facts. And by the time Tuesday rolls around, if I've got all
the facts, the problem usually solves itself!"
I asked Dean Hawkes if this meant he had licked worry entirely. "Yes," he said, "I think I
can honestly say that my live is now almost totally devoid of worry. I have found," he
went on, "that if a man will devote his time to securing facts in an impartial, objective
way, his worries usually evaporate in the light of knowledge."
Let me repeat that: "If a man will devote his time to securing facts in an impartial,
objective way, his worries will usually evaporate in the light of knowledge."
But what do most of us do ? If we bother with facts at all- and Thomas Edison said in all
seriousness: "There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the labour of
thinking"-if we bother with facts at all, we hunt like bird dogs after the facts that
bolster up what we already think-and ignore all the others! We want only the facts that
justify our acts-the facts that fit in conveniently with our wishful thinking and justify
our preconceived prejudices!
As Andre Maurois put it: "Everything that is in agreement with our personal desires
seems true. Everything that is not puts us into a rage."
Is it any wonder, then, that we find it so hard to get at the answers to our problems?
Wouldn't we have the same trouble trying to solve a second-grade arithmetic problem, if
we went ahead on the assumption that two plus two equals five? Yet there are a lot of
people in this world who make life a hell for themselves and others by insisting that two
plus two equals five-or maybe five hundred!
What can we do about it? We have to keep our emotions out of our thinking; and, as
Dean Hawkes put it, we must secure the facts in "an impartial, objective" manner.
That is not an easy task when we are worried. When we are worried, our emotions are
riding high. But here are two ideas that I have found helpful when trying to step aside
from my problems, in order to see the facts in a clear, objective manner.
1. When trying to get the facts, I pretend that I am collecting this information not for
myself, but for some other person. This helps me to take a cold, impartial view of the
evidence. This helps me eliminate my emotions.
2. While trying to collect the facts about the problem that is worrying me, I sometimes
pretend that I am a lawyer preparing to argue the other side of the issue. In other
words, I try to get all the facts against myself-all the facts that are damaging to my
wishes, all the facts I don't like to face.
Then I write down both my side of the case and the other side of the case-and I
generally find that the truth lies somewhere in between these two extremities.
Here is the point I am trying to make. Neither you nor I nor Einstein nor the Supreme
Court of the United States is brilliant enough to reach an intelligent decision on any
problem without first getting the facts. Thomas Edison knew that. At the time of his
death, he had two thousand five hundred notebooks filled with facts about the problems
he was facing.
So Rule 1 for solving our problems is: Get the facts. Let's do what Dean Hawkes did: let's
not even attempt to solve our problems without first collecting all the facts in an
impartial manner.
However, getting all the facts in the world won't do us any good until we analyse them
and interpret them.
I have found from costly experience that it is much easier to analyse the facts after
writing them Sown. In fact, merely writing the facts on a piece of paper and stating our
problem clearly goes a long way toward helping us to reach a sensible decision. As
Charles Kettering puts it: "A problem well stated is a problem half solved."
Let me show you all this as it works out in practice. Since the Chinese say one picture is
worth ten thousand words, suppose I show you a picture of how one man put exactly
what we are talking about into concrete action.
Let's take the case of Galen Litchfield-a man I have known for several years; one of the
most successful American business men in the Far East. Mr. Litchfield was in China in
1942, when the Japanese invaded Shanghai. And here is his story as he told it to me
while a guest in my home:
"Shortly after the Japs took Pearl Harbour," Galen Litchfield began, "they came
swarming into Shanghai. I was the manager of the Asia Life Insurance Company in
Shanghai. They sent us an 'army liquidator'-he was really an admiral- and gave me orders
to assist this man in liquidating our assets. I didn't have any choice in the matter. I could
co-operate-or else. And the 'or else' was certain death.
"I went through the motions of doing what I was told, because I had no alternative. But
there was one block of securities, worth $750,000, which I left off the list I gave to the
admiral. I left that block of securities off the list because they belonged to our Hong
Kong organisation and had nothing to do with the Shanghai assets. All the same, I feared
I might be in hot water if the Japs found out what I had done. And they soon found out.
"I wasn't in the office when the discovery was made, but my head accountant was there.
He told me that the Jap admiral flew into a rage, and stamped and swore, and called
me a thief and a traitor! I had defied the Japanese Army! I knew what that meant. I
would be thrown into the Bridge house!
"The Bridge house 1 The torture chamber of the Japanese Gestapo! I had had personal
friends who had killed themselves rather than be taken to that prison. I had had other
friends who had died in that place after ten days of questioning and torture. Now I was
slated for the Bridge house myself!
"What did I do? I heard the news on Sunday afternoon. I suppose I should have been
terrified. And I would have been terrified if I hadn't had a definite technique for solving
my problems. For years, whenever I was worried I had always gone to my typewriter and
written down two questions-and the answers to these questions:
"1. What am I worrying about?
"2. What can I do about it?
"I used to try to answer those questions without writing them down. But I stopped that
years ago. I found that writing down both the questions and the answers clarifies my
thinking.
So, that Sunday afternoon, I went directly to my room at the Shanghai Y.M.C.A. and got
out my typewriter. I wrote: "I. What am I worrying about?
I am afraid I will be thrown into the Bridge house tomorrow morning.
"Then I typed out the second question:
"2. What can I do about it?
"I spent hours thinking out and writing down the four courses of action I could take-and
what the probable consequence of each action would be.
1. I can try to explain to the Japanese admiral. But he "no speak English". If I try to
explain to him through an interpreter, I may stir him up again. That might mean death,
for he is cruel, would rather dump me in the Bridge house than bother talking about it.
2. I can try to escape. Impossible. They keep track of me all the time. I have to check in
and out of my room at the Y.M.C.A. If I try to escape, I'll probably be captured and shot.
3. I can stay here in my room and not go near the office again. If I do, the Japanese
admiral will be suspicion, will probably send soldiers to get me and throw me into the
Bridge-house without giving me a chance to say a word.
4. I can go down to the office as usual on Monday morning. If I do, there is a chance that
the Japanese admiral may be so busy that he will not think of what I did. Even if he
does think of it, he may have cooled off and may not bother me. If this happens, I am
all right. Even if he does bother me, I'll still have a chance to try to explain to him. So,
going down to the office as usual on Monday morning, and acting as if nothing had gone
wrong gives me two chances to escape the Bridge-house.
"As soon as I thought it all out and decided to accept the fourth plan-to go down to the
office as usual on Monday morning-I felt immensely relieved.
"When I entered the office the next morning, the Japanese admiral sat there with a
cigarette dangling from his mouth. He glared at me as he always did; and said nothing.
Six weeks later-thank God-he went back to Tokyo and my worries were ended.
"As I have already said, I probably saved my life by sitting down that Sunday afternoon
and writing out all the various steps I could take and then writing down the probable
consequences of each step and calmly coming to a decision. If I hadn't done that, I
might have floundered and hesitated and done the wrong thing on the spur of the
moment. If I hadn't thought out my problem and come to a decision, I would have been
frantic with worry all Sunday afternoon. I wouldn't have slept that night. I would have
gone down to the office Monday morning with a harassed and worried look; and that
alone might have aroused the suspicion of the Japanese admiral and spurred him to act.
"Experience has proved to me, time after time, the enormous value of arriving at a
decision. It is the failure to arrive at a fixed purpose, the inability to stop going round
and round in maddening circles, that drives men to nervous breakdowns and living hells.
I find that fifty per cent of my worries vanishes once I arrive at a clear, definite
decision; and another forty per cent usually vanishes once I start to carry out that
decision.
"So I banish about ninety per cent of my worries by taking these four steps:
"1. Writing down precisely what I am worrying about.
"2. Writing down what I can do about it.
"3. Deciding what to do.
"4. Starting immediately to carry out that decision."
Galen Litchfield is now the Far Eastern Director for Starr, Park and Freeman, Inc., III
John Street, New York, representing large insurance and financial interests.
In fact, as I said before, Galen Litchfield today is one of the most important American
business men in Asia; and he confesses to me that he owes a large part of his success to
this method of analysing worry and meeting it head-on.
Why is his method so superb? Because it is efficient, concrete, and goes directly to the
heart of the problem. On top of all that, it is climaxed by the third and indispensable
rule: Do something about it. Unless we carry out our action, all our fact-finding and
analysis is whistling upwind-it's a sheer waste of energy.
William James said this: "When once a decision is reached and execution is the order of
the day, dismiss absolutely all responsibility and care about the outcome." In this case,
William James undoubtedly used the word "care" as a synonym for "anxiety".) He meantonce you have made a careful decision based on facts, go into action. Don't stop to
reconsider. Don't begin to hesitate worry and retrace your steps. Don't lose yourself in
self-doubting which begets other doubts. Don't keep looking back over your shoulder.
I once asked Waite Phillips, one of Oklahoma's most prominent oil men, how he carried
out decisions. He replied: "I find that to keep thinking about our problems beyond a
certain point is bound to create confusion and worry. There comes a time when any
more investigation and thinking are harmful. There comes a time when we must decide
and act and never look back."
Why don't you employ Galen Litchfield's technique to one of your worries right now?
Here is question No. 1 -What am I worrying about? (Please pencil the answer to that
question in the space below.)
Question No. 2 -What can I do about it? (Please write your answer to that question in
the space below.)
Question No. 3 -Here is what I am going to do about it.
Question No. 4 -When am I going to start doing it?