Mrs. E. K. Shields was driven to despair- even to the brink of suicide-before she learned to live just till bedtime. "In 1937, she lost her husband; she was very depressed-and almost penniless. She wrote her former employer, Mr. Leon Roach, of the Roach-Fowler Company of Kansas City, and got her old job back. She had formerly made her living selling books to rural and town school boards. She had sold her car two years previously when her husband became ill; but she managed to scrape together enough money to put a down payment on a used car and started out to sell books again.

"She had thought that getting back on the road would help relieve her depression; but driving alone and eating alone was almost more than she could take. Some of the territory was not very productive, and she found it hard to make those car payments, small as they were.

"In the spring of 1938, she was working out from Versailles, Missouri. The schools were poor, the roads bad; she was so lonely and discouraged that at one time she even considered suicide. It seemed that success was impossible. She had nothing to live for. She dreaded getting up each morning and facing life. She was afraid of everything: afraid she could not meet the car payments; afraid she could not pay her room rent; afraid she would not have enough to eat. She was afraid her health was failing and she had no money for a doctor. All that kept her from suicide was the thoughts that her sister would be deeply grieved, and that she did not have enough money to pay her funeral expenses.

"Then one day she read an article that lifted her out of her despondence and gave her the courage to go on living. She would never cease to be grateful for one inspiring sentence in that article. It said: 'Every day is a new life to a wise man.' she typed that sentence out and pasted it on the windshield of her car, where she saw it every minute she was driving. She found it wasn't so hard to live only one day at a time. She learned to forget the yesterdays and to not-think of the tomorrows. Each morning she said to herself: 'Today is a new life.'

"She had succeeded in overcoming her fear of loneliness, her fear of want. She was happy and fairly successful and had a lot of enthusiasm and love for life. She knew that she would never again be afraid, regardless of what life hands her. She knew that I didn't have to fear the future. She knew that she can live one day at a time-and that “Every day is a new life to a wise man.' 

By all means take thought for the tomorrow, yes, careful thought and planning and preparation. But have no anxiety.