III
PRECAUTIONS BEFORE BEGINNING
Now that I have succeeded (if succeeded I have) in persuading you to admit to yourself that you are constantly haunted by a suppressed dissatisfaction with your own arrangement of your daily life; and that the primal1 cause of that inconvenient2 dissatisfaction is the feeling that you are every day leaving undone3 something which you would like to do, and which, indeed, you are always hoping to do when you have "more time"; and now that I have drawn4 your attention to the glaring, dazzling truth that you never will have "more time," since you already have all the time there is—you expect me to let you into some wonderful secret by which you may at any rate approach the ideal of a perfect arrangement of the day, and by which, therefore, that haunting, unpleasant, daily disappointment of things left undone will be got rid of!
I have found no such wonderful secret. Nor do I expect to find it, nor do I expect that anyone else will ever find it. It is undiscovered. When you first began to gather my drift, perhaps there was a resurrection of hope in your breast. 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! The fact is that there is no easy way, no royal road. The path to Mecca is extremely hard and stony5, and the worst of it is that you never quite get there after all.
The most important preliminary to the task of arranging one's life so that one may live fully and comfortably within one's daily budget of twenty-four hours is the calm realisation of the extreme difficulty of the task, of the sacrifices and the endless effort which it demands. I cannot too strongly insist on this.
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. If you are not prepared for discouragements and disillusions6; if you will not be content with a small result for a big effort, then do not begin. Lie down again and resume the uneasy doze7 which you call your existence.
It is very sad, is it not, very depressing and sombre? And yet I think it is rather fine, too, this necessity for the tense bracing8 of the will before anything worth doing can be done. I rather like it myself. I feel it to be the chief thing that differentiates9 me from the cat by the fire.
"Well," you say, "assume that I am braced10 for the battle. Assume that I have carefully weighed and comprehended your ponderous11 remarks; how do I begin?" Dear sir, you simply begin. There is no magic method of beginning. If a man standing12 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."
As I have previously13 said, the chief beauty about the constant supply of time is that you cannot waste it in advance. 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. Which fact is very gratifying and reassuring14. You can turn over a new leaf every hour if you choose. Therefore no object is served in waiting till next week, or even until to-morrow. You may fancy that the water will be warmer next week. It won't. It will be colder.
But before you begin, let me murmur15 a few words of warning in your private ear.
Let me principally warn you against your own ardour. Ardour in well-doing is a misleading and a treacherous16 thing. It cries out loudly for employment; you can't satisfy it at first; it wants more and more; it is eager to move mountains and divert the course of rivers. It isn't content till it perspires17. And then, too often, when it feels the perspiration18 on its brow, it wearies all of a sudden and dies, without even putting itself to the trouble of saying, "I've had enough of this."
Beware of undertaking19 too much at the start. Be content with quite a little. Allow for accidents. Allow for human nature, especially your own.
A failure or so, in itself, would not matter, if it did not incur20 a loss of self-esteem and of self-confidence. But just as nothing succeeds like success, so nothing fails like failure. Most people who are ruined are ruined by attempting too much. Therefore, in setting out on the immense enterprise of living fully and comfortably within the narrow limits of twenty-four hours a day, let us avoid at any cost the risk of an early failure. I will not agree that, in this business at any rate, a glorious failure is better than a petty success. I am all for the petty success. A glorious failure leads to nothing; a petty success may lead to a success that is not petty.
So let us begin to examine the budget of the day's time. You say your day is already full to overflowing21. How? You actually spend in earning your livelihood—how much? Seven hours, on the average? And in actual sleep, seven? I will add two hours, and be generous. And I will defy you to account to me on the spur of the moment for the other eight hours.
1 primal [ˈpraɪml] 第11级 | |
adj.原始的;最重要的 | |
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2 inconvenient [ˌɪnkənˈvi:niənt] 第8级 | |
adj.不方便的,令人感到麻烦的 | |
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3 undone [ˌʌn'dʌn] 第7级 | |
a.未做完的,未完成的 | |
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4 drawn [drɔ:n] 第11级 | |
v.(draw的过去式)拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的 | |
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5 stony [ˈstəʊni] 第8级 | |
adj.石头的,多石头的,冷酷的,无情的 | |
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6 disillusions [ˌdisiˈlu:ʒənz] 第7级 | |
使不再抱幻想,使理想破灭( disillusion的第三人称单数 ) | |
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7 doze [dəʊz] 第8级 | |
vi. 打瞌睡;假寐 vt. 打瞌睡度过 n. 瞌睡 | |
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8 bracing ['breisiŋ] 第7级 | |
adj.令人振奋的 | |
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9 differentiates [ˌdifəˈrenʃieits] 第7级 | |
区分,区别,辨别( differentiate的第三人称单数 ); 区别对待; 表明…间的差别,构成…间差别的特征 | |
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10 braced [b'reɪst] 第7级 | |
adj.拉牢的v.支住( brace的过去式和过去分词 );撑牢;使自己站稳;振作起来 | |
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11 ponderous [ˈpɒndərəs] 第11级 | |
adj.沉重的,笨重的,(文章)冗长的 | |
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12 standing [ˈstændɪŋ] 第8级 | |
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的 | |
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13 previously ['pri:vɪəslɪ] 第8级 | |
adv.以前,先前(地) | |
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14 reassuring [ˌri:ə'ʃuəriŋ] 第7级 | |
a.使人消除恐惧和疑虑的,使人放心的 | |
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15 murmur [ˈmɜ:mə(r)] 第7级 | |
n.低语,低声的怨言;vi.低语,低声而言;vt.低声说 | |
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16 treacherous [ˈtretʃərəs] 第9级 | |
adj.不可靠的,有暗藏的危险的;adj.背叛的,背信弃义的 | |
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17 perspires [pəˈspaɪəz] 第10级 | |
v.出汗,流汗( perspire的第三人称单数 ) | |
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18 perspiration [ˌpɜ:spəˈreɪʃn] 第9级 | |
n.汗水;出汗 | |
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19 undertaking [ˌʌndəˈteɪkɪŋ] 第9级 | |
n.保证,许诺,事业 | |
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20 incur [ɪnˈkɜ:(r)] 第7级 | |
vt.招致,蒙受,遭遇 | |
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21 overflowing [əʊvə'fləʊɪŋ] 第7级 | |
n. 溢出物,溢流 adj. 充沛的,充满的 动词overflow的现在分词形式 | |
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