"It is too much fun not
to go on with it."
After breakfast the mother with a little roguish twinkle, said:
"Well, what do you think you will do to amuse yourself to-day,
Alice?"
"Oh! I think--" and then they both laughed and Alice started off on
her second day's "vacation."
By the end of a week she was out of that tired rut and having a very
good time. New ideas had come to her about the school and the
children; in fact, from being dead and heavy in her work, she had
become alive.
When she found the old tired state coming on her again, she and her
mother always "took a vacation," and every time avoided the tired
rut more easily.
If one only has imagination enough, the helpfulness and restfulness
of playing "take a vacation" will tell equally well in any kind of
work.
You can play at dressmaking--play at millinery--play at keeping
shop. You can make a game of any sort of drudgery, and do the work
better for it, as well as keep better rested and more healthy
yourself. But you must be steady and persistent and childlike in the
way you play your game.
Do not stop in the middle and exclaim, "How silly!"--and then slump
into the tired state again.
What I am telling you is nothing more nor less than a good healthy
process of self-hypnotism. Really, it is more the attitude we take
toward our work that tires us than the work itself. If we could only
learn that and realize it as a practical fact, it would save a great
deal of unnecessary suffering and even illness.
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