How to Live on 24-Hours a Day - Arnold Bennett

 1. The Daily Miracle : 

a). You wake up in the morning, and lo! your purse is magically filled with twenty-four hours of the unmanufactured tissue of the universe of your life! It is yours. It is the most precious possession.

b). And observe - no one can take it from you. It is unstealable and no one receives either more or less than you receive. Genius is never rewarded by an extra hour a day and there is no punishment for misuse.

c). You can only waste the passing moment. You cannot waste tomorrow; it is kept for you. You cannot waste the next hour: it is kept for you.

d). We never shall have more time. We have and we have always had, all the time there is. It is the realisation of the profound and neglected truth.  

 

2. The Desire to Exceed One's Agenda :  

Until an effort is made to satisfy that wish, the sense of uneasy waiting for something to start which has not started will remain to disturb the peace of soul. That wish has been called by many names. It is one form of the universal desire for knowledge. And it is so strong that men whose whole lives have been given to the systematic acquirement of knowledge have been driven by it to overstep the limits of their agenda in search of still more knowledge.

 

3. Precautions Before Begining :

a). If you are not prepared for discouragements and disillutions; 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 doze which you call your existence.

b). Beware of undertaking too much at the start. Be content with quite a little. Allow for accidents. Allow for human nature, especially your own.

c). A failure or so, in itself, would not matter, if it did not incur a loss of self-esteem and of self-confidence. But just as nothing succeeds like success, so nothing fails like failure. 

4. The Cause of theTrouble :

a). If one makes 2/3 of his existence subservient to 1/3, for which admittedly one has known absolutely feverish zest, how can one hope to live fully and completely? One cannot.

 b). If my typical example who wishes to live fully and completely, he or she must mentally arrange a day within a day. And this inner day must begin at 6:00 PM and end at 10 AM. It is a day of 16 hours end during all these 16 hours, there is nothing whatever to do but cultivate body and soul and once fellow men.

c). One of the chief things which my typical example has to learn is that the mental faculties are capable of continuous hard activity; they do not tire like an arm or a leg. All they want is change, not rest, except in sleep.

5. Tennis and the Immortal Soul :

a). What I suggest is that at 6:00 o'clock you look fat in the face and admit that you are not tired (because you are not, you know) and that you arrange your evening so that it is not cut in the middle buy a meal. By doing so, you will have a clear expense of at least 3 hours.

b). The one who begins to go to bed 40 minutes before opening bedroom door is bored; that is to say, he is not li living. 

6. Remember Human Nature : 

a). I was constantly being informed by older and wiser people that more work, more genuine living, could be got out of six days then out of seven.

b). We have marked for saving half an hour at least on six mornings a week and one hour and half on three evenings a week, total seven hours and half a week.

c). Why should you be astonished that an average of over an hour a day given to the mind should permanently and completely and leaving the whole activity of the mind?

d). When you have conscientiously given seven hours and 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.

And habits are the very Dickens to change!