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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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