How to Live on Twenty-Four Hours a Day
Page: 34

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 ones 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.

I must insist on it.

A failure at the commencement may easily kill outright the newborn
impulse towards a complete vitality, and therefore every precaution
should be observed to avoid it. The impulse must not be over-taxed.
Let the pace of the first lap be even absurdly slow, but let it be as
regular as possible.

And, having once decided to achieve a certain task, achieve it at all costs
of tedium and distaste. The gain in self-confidence of having accomplished
a tiresome labour is immense.

Finally, in choosing the first occupations of those evening hours, be guided
by nothing whatever but your taste and natural inclination.