The Doctor’s Prescription

A physician gave some rather whimsical advice to a patient, an aggressive businessman. Excitedly he told the doctor what an enormous amount of work he had to do. "If I write you a prescription will you follow it?" asked the doctor, realizing his state of mental tension. 

This, believe it or not, was the prescription: The patient was to take off two hours every working day and go for a long walk. He was to take off a half-day a week and spend that half-day in a cemetery. 

In astonishment, the patient demanded, "Why should I spend a half-day in a cemetery?"  

"Because," answered the doctor, "I want you to wander around and took at the gravestones of men who are there permanently. I want you to meditate upon the fact many of them are there because they thought even as you do, that the whole world rested on their shoulders. Meditate on the solemn fact that when you get there permanently, the world will go on just the same and, important as you are, others will be able to do the work you are now doing." 

Norman Vincent Peale, The Power of Positive Thinking