The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new. ››People who live in the past generally are afraid to compete in the present. I've got my faults, but living in the past is not one of them. There's no future in it. ››Life is a culmination of the past, an awareness of the present, an indication of a future beyond knowledge, the quality that gives a touch of divinity to matter. ››There are very few things in the mind which eat up as much energy as worry. It is one of the most difficult things not to worry about anything. Worry is experienced when things go wrong, but in relation to past happenings it is idle merely to wish that they might have been otherwise. The frozen past is what it is, and no amount of worrying is going to make it other than what it has been. But the limited ego-mind identifies itself with its past, gets entangled with it and keeps alive the pangs of frustrated desires. Thus worry continues to grow into the mental life of man until the ego-mind is burdened by the past. Worry is also experienced in relation to the future when this future is expected to be disagreeable in some way. In this case it seeks to justify itself as a necessary part of the attempt to prepare for coping with the anticipated situations. But, things can never be helped merely by worrying. Besides, many of the things which are anticipated never turn up, or if they do occur, they turn out to be much more acceptable than they were expected to be. Worry is the product of feverish imagination working under the stimulus of desires. It is a living through of sufferings which are mostly our own creation. Worry has never done anyone any good, and it is very much worse than mere dissipation of psychic energy, for it substantially curtails the joy and fullness of life. ››When we put things off until some future - probably mythical - Laterland, we drag the past into the future. The burden of yesterday's incompletions is a heavy load to carry. Don't carry it. ››To believe in something not yet proved and to underwrite it with our lives; it is the only way we can leave the future open. ››If the future is to remain open and free, we need people who can tolerate the unknown, who will not need the support of completely worked-out systems or traditional blueprints from the past. ››I have learned a philosophy in the great University of Hard Knocks. I have learned to live each day as it comes, and not to borrow trouble by dreading tomorrow. ››There are some years in our lives that we would not want to live again. But even these years will pass away, and the lessons learned will be a future blessing. ››
