In the spring of 1871, a young man
picked up a book and read twenty-one
words that had a profound effect on
his future. A medical student at the
Montreal General Hospital, he was
worried about passing the final exami-
nation, worried about what to do,
where to go, how to build up a prac-
tice, how to make a living.
The twenty-one words that this
young medical student read in 1871
helped him to become the mostfamous physician of his generation.
He organized the world-famous Johns
Hopkins School of Medicine. He be-
came Regius Professor of Medicine at
Oxford—the highest honor that can be
bestowed upon any medical man in
the British Empire. He was knighted
by the King of England. When he died,
two huge volumes containing 1466
pages were required to tell the story of
his life.
His name was Sir William Osler.
Here are the twenty-one words that he
read in the spring of 1871—twenty-one
words from Thomas Carlyle that
helped him lead a life free from worry “Our main business is not to see what
lies dimly at a distance, but to do what
lies clearly at hand.”
Forty-two years later, on a soft
spring night when the tulips were
blooming on the campus, this man,
Sir William Osler, addressed the stu-
dents of Yale University. He told those
Yale students that a man like himself
who had been a professor in four
universities and had written a popular
book was supposed to have “brains of
a special quality.” He declared that
that was untrue. He said that his inti-
mate friends knew that his brains were
“of the most mediocre character.”What, then, was the secret of his
success? He stated that it was owing
to what he called living in “day-tight
compartments.” What did he mean by
that? A few months before he spoke at
Yale, Sir William Osler had crossed
the Atlantic on a great ocean liner
where the captain, standing on the
bridge, could press a button and—
presto!—there was a clanging of
machinery and various parts of the
ship were immediately shut off from
one another—shut off into watertight
compartments. “Now each one of
you,” Dr. Osler said to those Yale stu-
dents, “is a much more marvellous organization than the great liner, and
bound on a longer voyage. What I urge
is that you so learn to control the
machinery as to live with ‘day-tight
compartments’ as the most certain
way to ensure safety on the voyage.
Get on the bridge, and see that at least
the great bulkheads are in working
order. Touch a button and hear, at
every level of your life, the iron doors
shutting out the Past—the dead
yesterdays. Touch another and shut
off, with a metal curtain, the Future—
the unborn tomorrows. Then you are
safe—safe for today! … Shut off the
past! Let the dead past bury its dead…. Shut out the yesterdays which have
lighted fools the way to dusty death….
The load of tomorrow, added to that
of yesterday, carried today, makes the
strongest falter. Shut off the future as
tightly as the past…. The future is
today…. There is no tomorrow. The
day of man’s salvation is now. Waste
of energy, mental distress, nervous
worries dog the steps of a man who is
anxious about the future…. Shut close,
then, the great fore and aft bulkheads,
and prepare to cultivate the habit of a
life of ‘day-tight compartments.’ “
Did Dr. Osler mean to say that we
should not make any effort to prepare for tomorrow? No. Not at all. But he
did go on in that address to say that
the best possible way to prepare for
tomorrow is to concentrate with all
your intelligence, all your enthusiasm,
on doing today’s work superbly today.
That is the only possible way you can
prepare for the future.
Sir William Osler urged the stu-
dents at Yale to begin the day with
Christ’s prayer “Give us this day our
daily bread.”
Remember that that prayer asks
only for today’s bread. It doesn’t com-
plain about the stale bread we had to
eat yesterday; and it doesn’t say: “Oh,God, it has been pretty dry out in the
wheat belt lately and we may have an-
other drought—and then how will I
get bread to eat next fall—or suppose
I lose my job—oh, God, how could I
get bread then?”
No, this prayer teaches us to ask
for today’s bread only. Today’s bread is
the only kind of bread you can pos-
sibly eat.
Years ago, a penniless philosopher
was wandering through a stony coun-
try where the people had a hard time
making a living. One day a crowd gath-
ered about him on a hill, and he gave
what is probably the most-quoted speech ever delivered anywhere at any
time. This speech contains twenty-six
words that have gone ringing down
across the centuries: “Take therefore
no thought for the morrow; for the
morrow shall take thought for the
things of itself. Sufficient unto the day
is the evil thereof.”
Many men have rejected those
words of Jesus: “Take no thought for
the morrow.” They have rejected those
words as a counsel of perfection, as a
bit of mysticism. “I must take thought
for the morrow,” they say. “I must take
out insurance to protect my family. I
must lay aside money for my old age. I must plan and prepare to get ahead.”
Right! Of course you must. The
truth is that those words of Jesus,
translated over three hundred years
ago, don’t mean today what they
meant during the reign of King James.
Three hundred years ago the word
thought frequently meant anxiety.
Modern versions of the Bible quote
Jesus more accurately as saying:
“Have no anxiety for the tomorrow.”
By all means take thought for the
tomorrow, yes, careful thought and
planning and preparation. But have no
anxiety.
During the Second World War, our military leaders planned for the mor-
row, but they could not afford to have
any anxiety. “I have supplied the best
men with the best equipment we
have,” said Admiral Ernest J. King,
who directed the United States Navy,
“and have given them what seems to
be the wisest mission. That is all I can
do.
“If a ship has been sunk,” Admiral
King went on, “I can’t bring it up. If it
is going to be sunk, I can’t stop it. I
can use my time much better working
on tomorrow’s problem than by fret-
ting about yesterday’s. Besides, if I let
those things get me, I wouldn’t last long.”
Whether in war or peace, the chief
difference between good thinking and
bad thinking is this: good thinking
deals with causes and effects and
leads to logical, constructive planning;
bad thinking frequently leads to ten-
sion and nervous breakdowns.
I had the privilege of interviewing
Arthur Hays Sulzberger, publisher
(1935–1961) of one of the most fa-
mous newspapers in the world, The
New York Times. Mr. Sulzberger told
me that when the Second World War
flamed across Europe, he was so
stunned, so worried about the future, that he found it almost impossible to
sleep. He would frequently get out of
bed in the middle of the night, take
some canvas and tubes of paint, look
in the mirror, and try to paint a portrait
of himself. He didn’t know anything
about painting, but he painted anyway,
to get his mind off his worries. Mr.
Sulzberger told me that he was never
able to banish his worries and find
peace until he had adopted as his
motto five words from a church hymn:
One step enough for me.
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