Stop worrying and start living?
Dale Carnegie was one of the top self-help gurus of the 20th century.
I managed to read some of his books and found out that he has brought up some interesting concepts of morality which we do not see much in our society today. Some of these include the attitude of appreciating others sincerely, the sweet feeling of doing good deeds, being patient and humble when dealing with difficult people and some others which -I think- do not contradict with the Islamic teachings of akhlaq.
Nevertheless as muslims we cannot agree with these concepts totally. Dale Carnegie was not a muslim, and the primary purpose for his teachings was mostly about self-satisfaction. However as muslims the primary reason for us to do good should always be about to please Allah, not ourselves, although the sense of self-satisfaction might come together when we do good deeds but this is unavoidable.
But, in overall, there is nothing wrong to learn from Carnegie or other western self-help authors; for as long as we always modify and integrate their self-help concepts with Tawheed, everything will be fine.
Dale Carnegie had also written a book entitled “Stop Worrying and Start Living”. Although the title of the book presents yet another interesting concept, but again I disagree.
Let me ask you, don’t you think worrying is good?
Perhaps with the exception of a few bunch of people, a sense of worry can actually motivate ourselves better in order to improve ourselves. If we don’t worry about anything at all, the motivation to do good will not be as strong.
For example, imagine yourself preparing for an exam. If you don’t worry that you might fail in the exam, you may not have enough motivation to study hard. In Islam we are also taught to be worried about the possibility of entering hellfire after we die, and this kind of worry help us to always improve our deeds while avoiding evil acts at the same time.
So it’s clear here, worrying is good, but not too much, of course.
