the old master continued， ‘your profits will average ten， twentyfive， or even fifty points. Consequently， by limiting your losses tofive points， you can be wrong more than half of the time and stillmake plenty of money?’
“I adopted that principle immediately and have used it eversince. It has saved my clients and me many thousands of dollars.
“After a while I realised that the stop-loss principle couldbe used in other ways besides in the stock market. I began toplace a stop-loss order on any and every kind of annoyance andresentment that came to me. It has worked like magic.
“For example， I often have a luncheon date with a friend whois rarely on time. In the old days， he used to keep me stewingaround for half my lunch hour before he showed up. Finally， Itold him about my stop-loss orders on my worries. I said： ‘Bill，my stop-loss order on waiting for you is exactly ten minutes. Ifyou arrive more than ten minutes late， our luncheon engagementwill be sold down the river—and I’ll be gone.’ ”
Man alive！ How I wish I had had the sense， years ago， to putstop-loss orders on my impatience， on my temper， on my desire for self-justification， on my regrets， and on all my mental andemotional strains. Why didn’t I have the horse sense to size upeach situation that threatened to destroy my peace of mind andsay to myself： “See here， Dale Carnegie， this situation is worthjust so much fussing about and no more”?… Why didn’t I?
However， I must give myself credit for a little sense on oneoccasion， at least. And it was a serious occasion， too—a crisisin my life—a crisis when I stood watching my dreams and myplans for the future and the work of years vanish into thin air. Ithappened like this.
In my early thirties， I had decided to spend my life writingnovels. I was going to be a second Frank Norris or Jack Londonor Thomas Hardy. I was so in earnest that I spent two yearsin Europe—where I would live cheaply with dollars during theperiod of wild， printing-press money that followed the FirstWorld War. I spent two years there， writing my magnum opus.
I called it The Blizzard. The title was a natural， for the receptionit got among publishers was as cold as any blizzard that everhowled across the plains of the Dakotas. When my literary agenttold me it was worthless， that I had no gift， no talent， for fiction，my heart almost stopped. I left his office in a daze. I couldn’t havebeen more stunned if he had hit me across the head with a club. Iwas stupefied. I realised that I was standing at the crossroads oflife， and had to make a tremendous decision. What should I do?
Which way should I turn? Weeks passed before I came out of thedaze. At that time， I had never heard of the phrase “put a stoploss order on your worries”。 But as I look back now， I can seethat I did just that. I wrote off my two years of sweating over thatnovel for just what they were worth—a noble experiment—andwent forward from there. I returned to my work of organising andteaching adult-education classes， and wrote biographies in my spare time—biographies and non-fiction books such as the oneyou are reading now.
Am I glad now that I made that decision? Glad? Every time Ithink about it now I feel like dancing in the street for sheer joy！ Ican honestly say that I have never spent a day or an hour since，lamenting the fact that I am not another Thomas Hardy.
One night a century ago， when a screech owl was screechingin the woods along the shore of Walden Pond， Henry Thoreaudipped his goose quill into his homemade ink and wrote in hisdiary： “The cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life， whichis required to be exchanged for it immediately or in the long run.”
To put it another way： we are fools when we overpay for athing in terms of what it takes out of our very existence.
Yet that is precisely what Gilbert and Sullivan did. Theyknew how to create gay words and gay music， but they knewdistressingly little about how to create gaiety in their own lives.
They created some of the loveliest light operas that ever delightedthe world： Patience， Pinafore， The Mikado. But they couldn’tcontrol their tempers. They embittered their years over nothingmore than the price of a carpet！ Sullivan ordered a new carpet forthe theatre they had bought. When Gilbert saw the bill， he hit theroof. They battled it out in court， and never spoke to one anotheragain as long as they lived. When Sullivan wrote the music for anew production， he mailed it to Gilbert; and when Gilbert wrotethe words， he mailed it back to Sullivan. Once they had to takea curtain call together， but they stood on opposite sides of thestage and bowed in different directions， so they wouldn’t see oneanother. They hadn’t the sense to put a stop-loss order on theirresentments， as Lincoln did.
Once， during the Civil War， when some of Lincoln’s friendswere denouncing his bitter enemies， Lincoln said： “You have more of a feeling of personal resentment than I have. PerhapsI have too little of it; but I never thought it paid. A man doesn’thave the time to spend half his life in quarrels. If any man ceasesto attack me， I never remember the past against him.”
I wish an old aunt of mine—Aunt Edith—had had Lincoln’sforgiving spirit. She and Uncle Frank lived on a mortgaged farmthat was infested with cockleburs and cursed with poor soil andditches. They had tough going—had to squeeze every nickel.
But Aunt Edith loved to buy a few curtains and other items tobrighten up their bare home. She bought these small luxuries oncredit at Dan Eversole’s drygoods store in Maryville， Missouri.