Remember Human Nature

[This is taken from Arnold Bennett's How to Live on 24 Hours a Day.]

I have incidentally mentioned the vast expanse of forty-four hours between leaving business at 2 p.m. on Saturday and returning to business at 10 a.m. on Monday.  And here I must touch on the point whether the week should consist of six days or of seven.  For many years—in fact, until I was approaching forty—my own week consisted of seven days.  I was constantly being informed by older and wiser people that more work, more genuine living, could be got out of six days than out of seven.

And it is certainly true that now, with one day in seven in which I follow no programme and make no effort save what the caprice of the moment dictates, I appreciate intensely the moral value of a weekly rest.  Nevertheless, had I my life to arrange over again, I would do again as I have done.  Only those who have lived at the full stretch seven days a week for a long time can appreciate the full beauty of a regular recurring idleness.  Moreover, I am aging.  And it is a question of age.  In cases of abounding youth and exceptional energy and desire for effort I should say unhesitatingly:  Keep going, day in, day out.

But in the average case I should say:  Confine your formal programme (super-programme, I mean) to six days a week.  If you find yourself wishing to extend it, extend it, but only in proportion to your wish; and count the time extra as a windfall, not as regular income, so that you can return to a six-day programme without the sensation of being poorer, of being a backslider.

Let us now see where we stand.  So far we have marked for saving out of the waste of days, half an hour at least on six mornings a week, and one hour and a half on three evenings a week.  Total, seven hours and a half a week.

I propose to be content with that seven hours and a half for the present.  “What?” you cry.  “You pretend to show us how to live, and you only deal with seven hours and a half out of a hundred and sixty-eight!  Are you going to perform a miracle with your seven hours and a half?”  Well, not to mince the matter, I am—if you will kindly let me!  That is to say, I am going to ask you to attempt an experience which, while perfectly natural and explicable, has all the air of a miracle.  My contention is that the full use of those seven-and-a-half hours will quicken the whole life of the week, add zest to it, and increase the interest which you feel in even the most banal occupations.  You practise physical exercises for a mere ten minutes morning and evening, and yet you are not astonished when your physical health and strength are beneficially affected every hour of the day, and your whole physical outlook changed.  Why should you be astonished that an average of over an hour a day given to the mind should permanently and completely enliven the whole activity of the mind?

More time might assuredly be given to the cultivation of one’s self.  And in proportion as the time was longer the results would be greater. But I prefer to begin with what looks like a trifling effort.

It is not really a trifling effort, as those will discover who have yet to essay it.  To “clear” even seven hours and a half from the jungle is passably difficult.  For some sacrifice has to be made.  One may have spent one’s time badly, but one did spend it; one did do something with it, however ill-advised that something may have been.  To do something else means a change of habits.

And habits are the very dickens to change!  Further, any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts.  If you imagine that you will be able to devote seven hours and a half a week to serious, continuous effort, and still live your old life, you are mistaken.  I repeat that some sacrifice, and an immense deal of volition, will be necessary.  And it is because I know the difficulty, it is because I know the almost disastrous effect of failure in such an enterprise, that I earnestly advise a very humble beginning. You must safeguard your self-respect.  Self-respect is at the root of all purposefulness, and a failure in an enterprise deliberately planned deals a desperate wound at one’s self-respect.  Hence I iterate and reiterate: Start quietly, unostentatiously.

When you have conscientiously given seven hours and a half a week to the cultivation of your vitality for three months—then you may begin to sing louder and tell yourself what wondrous things you are capable of doing.

Before coming to the method of using the indicated hours, I have one final suggestion to make.  That is, as regards the evenings, to allow much more than an hour and a half in which to do the work of an hour and a half.  Remember the chance of accidents.  Remember human nature. And give yourself, say, from 9 to 11.30 for your task of ninety minutes.