How to live on 24 hours a day
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| How to live on 24 hours a day- |
. The Daily Miracle 15 II. The Desire to Exceed One's Programme 20 III. Precautions Before Beginning. . . 25 IV. The Cause of the Trouble .... 30 V. Tennis and the Immortal Soul. 35 VI. Remember Human Nature .... 41 VII. Controlling the Mind 46 VIII. The Reflective Mood 51 IX. Interest in the Arts 56 X. Nothing in Life is Humdrum . . . 61 XI. Serious Reading 66 XII. Dangers to Avoid 71
From the author's preface:
This preface, though placed at the be- ginning, as a preface must be, should be read at the end of the book. I have received a large amount of correspondence concerning this small work, and many reviews of it — some of them nearly as long as the book itself — have been printed. But scarcely any of the comments have been adverse.
This preface, though placed at the be- ginning, as a preface must be, should be read at the end of the book. I have received a large amount of correspondence concerning this small work, and many reviews of it — some of them nearly as long as the book itself — have been printed. But scarcely any of the comments have been adverse.
Some people have objected to a frivolity of tone; but as the tone is not, in my opinion, at all frivolous, this objection did not impress me; and had no weightier reproach been put forward I might almost have been persuaded that the volume was flawless! A more serious stricture has, however, been offered — not in the press, but by sundry obviously sincere correspondents — and I must deal with it. A reference to page 31 will show that I anticipated and feared this disapprobation. The sentence against which protests have been made is as follows: —
"In the majority of instances he [the typical man] does not precisely feel a passion for his business; at best he does not dis-like it. He begins his business functions with some reluctance, as late as he can, and he ends them with joy, as early as he can. And his engines, while he is engaged in his business, are seldom at their full ' h.p.'
I am assured, in accents of unmistakable sincerity, that there are many businessmen — not merely those in high positions or with fine prospects, but modest subordinates with no hope of ever being much better off — who do enjoy their business functions, who do not shirk them, who do not arrive at the office as late as possible and depart as early as possible, who, in a word, but the whole of their force into their day's work and are genuinely fatigued at the end thereof. I am ready to believe it. I do believe it.
I know it. I always knew it. Both in London and in the provinces it has been my lot to spend long years in subordinate situations of business; the fact did not escape me that a certain proportion of my peers showed what amounted to an honest passion for their duties and that while engaged in those duties they were really living to the fullest extent of which they were capable. But I remain convinced that these fortunate and happy individuals (happier per- haps than they guessed) did not and do not constitute a majority, or anything like a majority.
I remain convinced that the majority of decent average conscientious men of business (men with aspirations and ideals) do not as a rule go home of a night genuinely tired. I remain convinced that they put not as much — - but as little of themselves as they conscientiously can into the earning of a livelihood, and that their vocation bores rather than interests them. Nevertheless, I admit that the minority is of sufficient importance to merit attention and that I ought not to have ignored it so completely as I did do. The whole difficulty of the hard-working minority was put in a single colloquial sentence by one of my correspondents. He wrote: " I am just as keen as anyone on doing something to ' exceed my pro- gramme/ but allow me to tell you that when I get home at six-thirty p.m. I am not anything like so fresh as you seem to imagine."
Author: Arnold Bennett
Publication Date: 1910
Publication Date: 1910