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Self-Control and How to Secure It
SELF-CONTROL AND HOW TO SECURE IT
Man is the only animal that doesn’t know how to live. Most suffering occurs by not following many simple rules of life.
Alexander Dumas “How does it happen that while children are so intelligent, men are so stupid.” The witty author “Education must be responsible for it.” Yes, education is chiefly to blame; no other hypothesis is possible.
The fact is, we do not learn how to think. Schools impart to us, ever more zealously, knowledge of which we can use only the smallest part; it burdens our memory, and only tempers our intelligence with a commonplace logic, which one would think ought to equip us for the struggle of life.
We copy our neighbors when it is futile or even bad to do so; we respect traditions in all departments without submitting them, for an instant, to criticism and reason. Thinking appears to be very tiresome.
Now, judgment is just what we need in life – a clear view of things, enabling us to foresee the immediate and the future consequences of our acts. We have this foresight when it is a question of protecting our material interests. What ingenuity do we not display in the pursuit of these benefits in reaching our goal! But when it is a question of our moral life, our conduct, we lose our power of judgment.
Man is the only animal that doesn’t know how to live. Most suffering occurs by not following many simple rules of life.
Alexander Dumas “How does it happen that while children are so intelligent, men are so stupid.” The witty author “Education must be responsible for it.” Yes, education is chiefly to blame; no other hypothesis is possible.
The fact is, we do not learn how to think. Schools impart to us, ever more zealously, knowledge of which we can use only the smallest part; it burdens our memory, and only tempers our intelligence with a commonplace logic, which one would think ought to equip us for the struggle of life.
We copy our neighbors when it is futile or even bad to do so; we respect traditions in all departments without submitting them, for an instant, to criticism and reason. Thinking appears to be very tiresome.
Now, judgment is just what we need in life – a clear view of things, enabling us to foresee the immediate and the future consequences of our acts. We have this foresight when it is a question of protecting our material interests. What ingenuity do we not display in the pursuit of these benefits in reaching our goal! But when it is a question of our moral life, our conduct, we lose our power of judgment.
Kindle Edition
First published August 24, 2013
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