Narasimhan Raghavan India Local time: 23:54 Member (2007) English to Tamil + ...
Dec 20, 2003
Right from my young days I have been impressed by Dale Carnegie and his books "How to win friends and influence people", "Stop worrying and start living" etc.
Recently I heard that he committed suicide in 1955. I tried to search the google for more details but other than some obscure references to the suicide, I was not able to get anything concrete. There seems to be a conspiracy of silence, which makes it only worse. Agreed that it is quite embarassing to note that an author advocating positive thinking fell victim negative thoughts. But what is achieved by glossing over it?
This has nothing to do directly with translation but then we translators have to be vigilant and have positive thoughts. To that extent this topic is relevant.
Can my Proz colleagues throw more light on this point?
In the box for checking "Off topic", it is mentioned "more play than work". This is definitely no play but is a matter of life and death.
Regards,
N.Raghavan
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aivars Argentina Local time: 15:24 Member (2003) English to Spanish + ...
Positive thoughts only for those who can't stand all kind of thoughts
Dec 20, 2003
It's not necessarily contradictory that someone who spent his life advocating positive thoughts kills herself. In Argentina many cases of priests that are child abusers have just turned up, and I say this to make my point that it's a common human reflex to force yourself to be the opposite of what you desire.
Positive thoughts: I had a friend who was always preaching about the importance of positive thinking, and how through that your life would improve. But in the time I saw him his father had died, his brother was run by a bus, he was shot in a leg, he lost his job, his girlfriend dumped him..But he insisted on this positive thought thing no matter what.
It's a defense mechanism, very poor people lacking resources are sometimes incredibly positive in the way they see things. Some people if they really saw themselves for a second, would have to kill themselves on the spot.
There are lot of geniouses that were very negative, and some commited suicide. I don't see the point of that either.
Rather than forcing yourself to think positive all the time, I would suggest that you DO lovely or interesting things for you and others.
[Edited at 2003-12-20 04:19]
[Edited at 2003-12-21 15:36]
[Edited at 2003-12-21 15:36]
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two2tango Argentina Local time: 15:24 Member (2001) English to Spanish + ...
Seeing and doing
Dec 20, 2003
aivars wrote:
Rather than forcing yourself to think positive all the time, I would suggest that you DO lovely or interesting things for you and others.
I fully second this!
In my opinion, being able to see reality in the eye is better than forcing a rosy image into your mind, and doing something to improve the world is more important than any nice-looking philosophy.
Enrique
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Jason Roberts United States Local time: 13:24 Dutch to English + ...
No way of really knowing
Dec 20, 2003
Dale Carnegie may or may not have committed suicide. Take a look at this Times obit:
On the one hand it says that "he had been ill for some time", but given the time that the piece was published that could be a euphemism for what today we would call depression or chemical imbalance. If he died today we would be given all the details, but that wasn't common practise in journalism 50 years ago. Family members had a sense of privacy and respect and probably wouldn't have talked about private family health matters.
I tend to think that it is probably Urban Legend that he committed suicide, after all, it makes such a nice, clever story...a renowned self-help expert kills himself.
Absent a time machine to go watch his final moments, I don't think anyone can say for sure whether his death was a suicide.
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Lorenzo Lilli Italy Local time: 20:24 German to Italian + ...
my 2 cents
Dec 20, 2003
two2tango wrote:
aivars wrote:
Rather than forcing yourself to think positive all the time, I would suggest that you DO lovely or interesting things for you and others.
I fully second this!
In my opinion, being able to see reality in the eye is better than forcing a rosy image into your mind, and doing something to improve the world is more important than any nice-looking philosophy.
Enrique
100% right IMHO. By the way, Narasimhan, do you know the Italian saying "predicare bene e razzolare male"? That means not to practise what you preach. And someone says: "Those who can do, do; those who can't do, teach".
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Narasimhan Raghavan India Local time: 23:54 Member (2007) English to Tamil + ...
TOPIC STARTER
I heard this differently
Dec 20, 2003
Quote: By the way, Narasimhan, do you know the Italian saying "predicare bene e razzolare male"? That means not to practise what you preach. And someone says: "Those who can do, do; those who can't do, teach". [/quote]
Those who can write well create masterpieces. Those who cannot, become critics. And coming to our profession, I attended a translation seminar, where a person held forth long on the theory of translation with a lot of technical terms. My professor, who was sitting by my side remarked that those who can translate do so while others present such papers. Needless to say, the presenter of the paper was not doing much translation.
Regards,
N.Raghavan
[Edited at 2003-12-20 11:11]
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Uldis Liepkalns Latvia Local time: 21:24 Member (2003) English to Latvian + ...
Even shorter definition
Dec 20, 2003
Narasimhan Raghavan wrote:
And someone says: "Those who can do, do; those who can't do, teach".
"Criticism is informing the author how I would have done it if I could"
Uldis
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