Important—Or Not!

A day is not long, a year is short, a life-time is but brief. To the life-time we attach importance, to the year less as we grow older, to the day but little. In this, our mathematics, at least, are at fault. The significance of the lifetime is as the significance of a day multiplied by three hundred and sixtyfour, multiplied by the years allotted to us. Increase the significance of the day, and surely the significance of a life is increased amazingly.

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Wherein can we give added significance to the day? So much of it is taken up with necessary things—sleep, eight hours or more (which we sometimes cut into for things we consider of more importance), eating (whose time we cut down only at the risk of spoilt digestion), earning a living (the hours of which are set for most of us).

Remain the meagre hours of our leisure, unless we are of the lucky few whose “work” is an outlet for self. Within these hours the conflict of interests becomes intense. There is never that dull feeling of “nothing to do” which oppresses sometimes in the adolescent stage. There is too much to do and too little time to do it in. Certain matters are definitely importtant page 58 enough not to be neglected—such things as pertain to health. The needful exercise should fulfil the two ends of increasing physical fitness and of being a pleasurable activity. To the ordinary person, a complete filling of leisure with physical activity, “sports,” is not satisfactory. It is for the individual to decide how much is necessary.

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To nearly everyone, a manual skill is a necessary acquisition. Have some of your leisure devoted to the development and exercise of your skill. But don't let the praise of friends, or the taking of prizes at handwork shows, blind you to the other sides of your nature.

Every human being (whether he acknowledges it or not) desires the development of cultural aspects. Your choice will depend partly on favourableness of environment, but mainly on what you have discovered in yourself of musical, artistic or literary ability. For your own happiness, do not neglect this discovery of yours.

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Most of your activities will take you among people. That is as it should be. There is so much we have in common that other humans not only contribute to our enjoyment of a mutual interest, but also enable us to understand ourselves a little better—perhaps as much by contrast as affinity.

But in each day, in each year, in each lifetime, it is those moments wherein you endeavour to know yourself, when, alone, you feel the daily routine suspended and yourself poised on the brink of understanding, when your limited intellect seems to expand but just not far enough—it is in those moments, rising above the clutter of your living, that you comprehend most nearly and live most fully.