I cannot terminate these hints, often, I fear, too didactic and abrupt,
upon the full use of one's time to the great end of living (as
distinguished from vegetating) without briefly referring to certain
dangers which lie in wait for the sincere aspirant towards life. The
first is the terrible danger of becoming that most odious and least
supportable of persons--a prig. Now a prig is a pert fellow who gives
himself airs of superior wisdom. A prig is a pompous fool who has gone
out for a ceremonial walk, and without knowing it has lost an important
part of his attire, namely, his sense of humour. A prig is a tedious
individual who, having made a discovery, is so impressed by his
discovery that he is capable of being gravely displeased because the
entire world is not also impressed by it. Unconsciously to become a
prig is an easy and a fatal thing.
Hence, when one sets forth on the enterprise of using all one's time,
it is just as well to remember that one's own time, and not other
people's time, is the material with which one has to deal; that the
earth rolled on pretty comfortably before one began to balance a budget
of the hours, and that it will continue to roll on pretty comfortably
whether or not one succeeds in one's new role of chancellor of the
exchequer of time. It is as well not to chatter too much about what
one is doing, and not to betray a too-pained sadness at the spectacle
of a whole world deliberately wasting so many hours out of every day,
and therefore never really living. It will be found, ultimately, that
in taking care of one's self one has quite all one can do.
Another danger is the danger of being tied to a programme like a slave
to a chariot. One's programme must not be allowed to run away with
one. It must be respected, but it must not be worshipped as a fetish.
A programme of daily employ is not a religion.
This seems obvious. Yet I know men whose lives are a burden to
themselves and a distressing burden to their relatives and friends
simply because they have failed to appreciate the obvious. "Oh, no," I
have heard the martyred wife exclaim, "Arthur always takes the dog out
for exercise at eight o'clock and he always begins to read at a quarter
to nine. So it's quite out of the question that we should..." etc.,
etc. And the note of absolute finality in that plaintive voice reveals
the unsuspected and ridiculous tragedy of a career.
On the other hand, a programme is a programme. And unless it is
treated with deference it ceases to be anything but a poor joke. To
treat one's programme with exactly the right amount of deference, to
live with not too much and not too little elasticity, is scarcely the
simple affair it may appear to the inexperienced.
And still another danger is the danger of developing a policy of rush,
of being gradually more and more obsessed by what one has to do next.
In this way one may come to exist as in a prison, and one's life may
cease to be one's own. One may take the dog out for a walk at eight
o'clock, and meditate the whole time on the fact that one must begin to
read at a quarter to nine, and that one must not be late.
And the occasional deliberate breaking of one's programme will not help
to mend matters. The evil springs not from persisting without
elasticity in what one has attempted, but from originally attempting
too much, from filling one's programme till it runs over. The only
cure is to reconstitute the programme, and to attempt less.
But the appetite for knowledge grows by what it feeds on, and there are
men who come to like a constant breathless hurry of endeavour. Of them
it may be said that a constant breathless hurry is better than an
eternal doze.
In any case, if the programme exhibits a tendency to be oppressive, and
yet one wishes not to modify it, an excellent palliative is to pass
with exaggerated deliberation from one portion of it to another; for
example, to spend five minutes in perfect mental quiescence between
chaining up the St. Bernard and opening the book; in other words, to
waste five minutes with the entire consciousness of wasting them.
The last, and chiefest danger which I would indicate, is one to which I
have already referred--the risk of a failure at the commencement of the
enterprise.