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March 13 - March 13, 2022
it is better to have lived a bit than never to have lived at all.
As they say, "Something is better than nothing".
It is always the man who has tasted life who demands more of it.
that weekly interval of forty hours, from Saturday to Monday, is yours just as much as the other man's, though a slight accumulation of fatigue may prevent you from employing the whole of your "h.p." upon it.
You say it is impossible for you to go earlier to bed of a night—to do so would upset the entire household.
My husband loves to go to sleep later.
if you persist in rising earlier, and the consequence is
insufficiency of sleep, you will soon find a way of goi...
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"Most people sleep themselves stupid."
nine men out of ten would have better health and more fun out of life if they spent less time in bed.
you will accomplish as much in one morning hour as in two evening hours.
Is that because it is more peaceful during the morning hours? Or is it because you find yourself to be less distracted first thing?
in an age when an excellent spirit-lamp (including a saucepan) can be bought for less than a shilling,
We don't have any excuses when others were working by candle light before!
Good situation. Regular income. Quite enough for luxuries as well as needs. Not really extravagant. And yet the fellow's always in difficulties. Somehow he gets nothing out of his money. Excellent flat—half empty! Always looks as if he'd had the brokers in. New suit—old hat! Magnificent necktie—baggy trousers!
Newspapers are full of articles explaining how to live on such-and-such a sum,
I have seen an essay, "How to live on eight shillings a week." But I have never seen an essay, "How to live on twenty-four hours a day." Yet it has been said that time is money.
Time is a great deal more than money.
you cannot buy yourself a minute more time than I have,
It is the most precious of possessions.
You can only waste the passing moment. You cannot waste to-morrow; it is kept for you.
Out of it you have to spin health, pleasure, money, content, respect, and the evolution of your immortal soul.
Strange that the newspapers, so enterprising and up-to-date as they are, are not full of "How to live on a given income of time," instead of "How to live on a given income of money"!
one can't quite manage on a thousand pounds a year;
Once upon a time in 1910.
We never shall have any more time. We have, and we have always had, all the time there is.
that innumerable band of souls who are haunted, more or less painfully, by the feeling that the years slip by, and slip by, and slip by, and that they have not yet been able to get their lives into proper working order.
This is depressing to hear, but it needs to be said, if we are to do something right now in this present moment.
"O man, what hast thou done with thy youth? What art thou doing with thine age?"
he may probably never reach Mecca; he may drown before he gets to Port Said; he may perish ingloriously on the coast of the Red Sea; his desire may remain eternally frustrate.
It is something to have left Brixton. Most of us have not left Brixton.
To travel and to live elsewhere is not a wasted commodity. It enriches us. It makes us grateful for the little things in life, which thus brings us more joy and happiness.
We are obliged, by various codes written and unwritten, to maintain ourselves and our families (if any) in health and comfort, to pay our debts, to save, to increase our prosperity by increasing our efficiency. A task sufficiently difficult! A task which very few of us achieve! A task often beyond our skill!
To be the good citizen and pay off our dues, where dues need to be paid. To give us peace of mind.
Herbert Spencer, in my opinion the greatest mind that ever lived,
Thank you for the recommendation kind Sir.
you are always hoping to do when you have "more time"; and now that I have drawn your attention to the glaring, dazzling truth that you never will have "more time,"
We cannot always say yes, because when we say yes, we are saying no to something else.
therefore, that haunting, unpleasant, daily disappointment of things left undone will be got rid of!
I call this mental clutter.
Perhaps you said to yourself, "This man will show me an easy, unfatiguing way of doing what I have so long in vain wished to do." Alas, no!
If you imagine that you will be able to achieve your ideal by ingeniously planning out a time-table with a pen on a piece of paper, you had better give up hope at once.
Haha! I've tried this! It doesn't work. The perfect schedule doesn't exist. There's no point in trying to calculate the minutes and hours of the day, when you have no idea how much energy is needed for the task, including recovery time.
If a man standing on the edge of a swimming-bath and wanting to jump into the cold water should ask you, "How do I begin to jump?" you would merely reply, "Just jump. Take hold of your nerves, and jump."
Exactly! Just take action!
The next year, the next day, the next hour are lying ready for you, as perfect, as unspoilt, as if you had never wasted or misapplied a single moment in all your career.
You may fancy that the water will be warmer next week. It won't. It will be colder.
The longer you leave it, the less time you will have to master what you intend to master.
Beware of undertaking too much at the start. Be content with quite a little. Allow for accidents. Allow for human nature, especially your own.
let us avoid at any cost the risk of an early failure.
Every man and every man's case is special. But if I take the case of a Londoner who works in an office, whose office hours are from ten to six, and who spends fifty minutes morning and night in travelling between his house door and his office door,
for our present purpose the clerk at a pound a week is exactly as well off as the millionaire in Carlton House-terrace.
his engines while he is engaged in his business are seldom at their full "h.p."
the man's one idea is to "get through" and have "done with."
If my typical man wishes to live fully and completely he must, in his mind, arrange a day within a day.
During those sixteen hours he is free; he is not a wage-earner; he is not preoccupied with monetary cares;
He walks to the station in a condition of mental coma.
I am an impassioned reader of newspapers. I read five English and two French dailies,
I am aware that you have nominally an hour (often in reality an hour and a half) in the midst of the day, less than half of which time is given to eating.
Six hours, probably more, have gone since you left the office—gone like a dream, gone like magic, unaccountably gone!
You don't spend three-quarters of an hour in "thinking about" going to bed.
the thought of that something gives a glow and a more intense vitality to the whole day?
and that you arrange your evening so that it is not cut in the middle by a meal. By so doing you will have a clear expanse of at least three hours.
You will still have the terrific wealth of forty-five hours between 2 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. Monday.
