Ocean Liners and Timeless Wisdom

My ongoing quest to live in “day-tight compartments”

Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash

A few weeks ago, as I was heading out the door to run a few errands, I grabbed my brown leather wallet off my desk. I tried to stick it in my shorts pocket, but there was a problem: it wouldn’t close. 

Somehow, in the preceding weeks and months, my wallet had morphed into a brick. A blunt object stuffed to the gills with paper and plastic. I peeled back the front flap, only to have my insurance card belched out onto the floor.

Horrified, I came to a sobering realization: I was George Costanza.

For those unfamiliar, there is an episode of Seinfeld where George is teased for his overstuffed wallet full of vital keepsakes, which include receipts, Irish currency, hard candy, and Sweet’N Lows. He is defiant and refuses to concede that he has a filing cabinet in his pocket until he meets disaster on a snowy New York street corner.

As I vainly attempted to pick up my insurance card with a grabber, it occurred to me that, like George, I was one free guitar lesson away from catastrophe. The insurance card was merely a warning shot.

I knew this madness could not go on any longer. After retrieving the card, and with a few minutes to kill, I resolved to empty my wallet, once and for all. 

I came across a few treasures—a hidden $20 bill tucked under one of the side flaps, a $100 Adidas gift card, and my long-lost debit card—but it was mostly trash. Somehow, I still had a business card from two jobs ago, a parking receipt that preceded COVID, and an Amazon gift card with twelve cents on it. 

No wonder it wouldn’t close.

As I finished the purge, I could see my wallet restoring its original shape. (I think I heard it breathe a sigh of relief.) When I got to the final flap, I came across something mysterious: a piece of white notebook paper stuffed deep inside. I pulled it out and saw black ink bleeding through from the other side. The paper was fragile; the creases were aged and already starting to tear. Intrigued, I opened it up.

Once the full sheet was exposed, I was transported back in time. I now knew exactly what it was—a paper full of inspirational quotes jotted down on a desperate afternoon in 2013. 

One line stood out from the rest. At the top of the page, in black ink and all-caps, was the phrase, “LIVE IN DAY-TIGHT COMPARTMENTS.” 

Conquer worry with the press of a button

Before I started my digital commonplace book in Evernote several years ago, I would write out helpful quotes, Bible verses, and motivational sayings on pieces of paper, stick them in my wallet, and refer to them as needed throughout the day. This was right in the middle of the “let me take on this disease all by myself” phase of my journey, which in retrospect was a fool’s errand. But these notebook pages served their purpose, providing me with inspirational sustenance to get through my darkest moments.

In 2013, during the most trying year of my life, I knew that I couldn’t go on consumed by worry. It was eating me alive and giving me panic attacks. One even sent me to the hospital. On a whim one October afternoon, I googled books on worry and stumbled upon How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, by Dale Carnegie.¹ I devoured it throughout the weekend and scribbled down the most memorable quotes on the sheet of paper found in my wallet.

“Live in Day-tight compartments” is the title of the first chapter, and also what I found to be the most useful technique in the book.

The phrase comes from a speech given by William Osler, the famed late 19th- and early 20th-century physician. Early in Osler’s career, he was consumed by worry about his life trajectory and whether he would pass his medical school exams. Years later, while addressing students at Yale University, Osler told the story of a recent Transatlantic trip on an ocean liner, and how he watched the captain press a button to close different parts of the ship to form watertight compartments. 

Osler realized this was an apt metaphor for worry:

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 close, then, the great fore and aft bulkheads, and prepare to cultivate the habit of a life of ‘day-tight compartments’.²

When I first read this quote, I marveled at how such a simple idea could be so profound, even if the language was a bit arcane. Shut out the past. Shut out the future. Focus intently on the present.

It was a message I needed to hear then, and, ten years later, was one I needed to hear now. Worry is once again an unwelcome visitor in my life.

Living in day-tight compartments makes perfect sense, and yet, there are few things more difficult. 

“Shut out the past…”

To be clear: we don’t want to shut out everything in our past. Every life has moments worth cherishing and reliving, even if we’ve experienced great hardship. I am always thinking about moments from my past, from the before period, pre-disease, when my life was exciting and spontaneous. 

I often think about playing basketball in gym class, reading a book sprawled out on the Northeastern quad, and birthday parties with my extended family. Some of my happiest memories are walking around Boston, hanging out with my college buddies on our second-floor balcony, and late nights out on the town. All are memories I can relive at any moment.

This is what’s great about the past—when viewed through the proper lens, it is a repository of life lessons, memories of loved ones, and nostalgia for happier times. As Viktor Frankl once said, “Having been is also a kind of being, and perhaps the surest kind.”³

The problem is when our past becomes a hindrance. 

Unfortunately, alongside our pleasant memories are often painful ones. Our regrets. Our traumas. Our unresolved skirmishes and desperate longings. Alongside “what was” is often, “what might have been”.

The past can’t be changed, no matter how hard we try. It is out of reach. We can’t go back, and yet, the past often holds us back.

My past has many pleasant memories, but I often regret what I didn’t do. I wish I had done more traveling, especially the opportunity to study abroad in London. I wish I had handled certain arguments better. I wish I didn’t leave Boston when I did. 

Then there are the intertwined sorrows. Family and friends who have passed away. Mobility I no longer have. Youthful energy long gone. But there is nothing I can do now; I can’t change what’s final.

Maybe you’re the same way. Maybe you have experienced loss or have memories you’d do anything to relive. Maybe you regret how you handled certain situations or relationships. 

Many of us are consumed by our past, imprisoned by it, which is precisely why, when we veer towards the negative, or when we beat ourselves up for something we did twenty years ago, we must shut this “compartment” as best we can. I like to visualize a door closing or a gate slamming shut. Something tangible.

No matter how much energy we expend, we can’t live one second in the past. Let’s remember the good times, the lessons learned, and the people and experiences that give our lives meaning. But the rest we should leave where it is.

Photo by Thom Milkovic on Unsplash

“Shut out the future…” 

If the past is finite, the future is infinite. Most of the time this is a good thing; it means that anything is possible. However, this is a double-edged sword. Our minds tend to go haywire and envision worst-case scenarios precisely because anything is possible. We catastrophize over what might happen, then think it’s inevitable. Or we dwell on all that we must do tomorrow, the day after, and the day after that, and believe that we’ll never survive.

Worrying about the future is not a new problem; Carnegie’s book cites many examples that are nearly a century old. As long as there have been humans, there have been humans worrying about the future. Today’s circumstances are difficult, no question. But life has always been difficult. 

Our future worries are valid, and in many cases, are a rational response to the realities of today. But the truth is, we don’t know how the future will go. Just like we can’t live one second in the past, we also can’t peer one second into the future. 

Think of how many times we believe something will happen a particular way, only to have it unfold differently, or not at all. As the philosopher Montaigne put it, “My life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened.”⁴ We can still prepare for the future and contemplate worst-case scenarios, but at some point, we have to let go and let life unfold. 

We are also bad at biting off more than we can chew. We obsess over every step of a project instead of taking the first step. We experience a crushing lifequake, such as a disease diagnosis, and we shut down at the thought of what is to come.

To quote Corrie ten Boom, “Worrying is carrying tomorrow's load with today's strength—carrying two days at once.” No one can sustain this burden long-term. Today is heavy enough.

The future, for all its potential catastrophes, is inherently unpredictable. Some worry is normal. But when we are overcome with fear, it is worth remembering that however the future plays out, it won’t be in the way we expect. 

Just like we closed off the past, we must also seal off the future. 

What remains

What’s left? The present. Ah yes, that elusive ideal that brings us full circle.

By letting go of the past and taking our gaze off the future, we are better able to see what’s directly in front of us. Although the present is fleeting and life will still get in the way, the more we can stay in the moment, the more we can unlock its unique power.

As Carnegie points out, when we live well today, we create pleasant memories that we can someday look back on with satisfaction, accessible at any moment. And in living well today, we set ourselves up to have the best future possible.

This is just the beginning

The paper was beginning to tear. It was clear that it wouldn’t survive being stuffed back into my slimmed-down wallet, so I transferred the quotes into Evernote and threw the paper away. It lived a good life, and I was happy to soak in its wisdom one last time.

Rediscovering this concept of day-tight compartments hasn’t solved all my issues staying in the present. Unfortunately, the past and future have a maddening way of playing tug of war with my mind at inopportune moments. But every time I envision the compartments closing, I feel a renewed focus to live in the here and now.

However, this is just the beginning. Once we shut out the past and the future, the hard part really begins. If the present is what remains, it doesn’t sit still. It takes all our concentration to capture it, even for a few seconds.

I have tried several techniques to stay the moment, many of which have ended in failure. I’ll share what’s worked (and what hasn’t) next time.

1. The book, admittedly, is a bit hokey. Carnegie speaks of eradicating worry as if everything could be solved with simple formulas. The book was published in 1948, so some of the examples are also outdated. That said, it has many nuggets of wisdom and is a quick read.

2.  How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, by Dale Carnegie, P. 5

3.  Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl, P. 82

4. https://www.azquotes.com/quote/203498. Apparently, Mark Twain said something similar, so this could just as easily be attributed to him.