Often the day seems so full, and one is so pressed for time that it
is impossible to get in all there is to do, and yet a little quiet
thinking will show that the important things can be easily put into
two thirds of the day, and the remaining third is free for rest, or
play, or both.
Then again, there is real delight in quietly fitting one thing in
after another when the day must be full, and the result at the end
of the day is only healthy fatigue from which a good night's rest
will refresh us entirely.
There is one thing that is very evident--a feeling of hurry retards
our work, it does not hasten it, and the more quietly we can do what
is before us, the more quickly and vigorously we do it.
The first necessity is to find ourselves out--to find out for a fact
when we do hurry, and how we hurry, and how we have the sense of
hurry with us all the time. Having willingly, and gladly, found
ourselves out, the remedy is straight before us.
Nature is on the side of leisure and will come to our aid with
higher standards of quiet, the possibilities of which are always in
every one's brain, if we only look to find them.
To sit five minutes quietly taking long breaths to get a sense of
leisure every day will be of very great help--and then when we find
ourselves hurrying, let us stop and recall the best quiet we
know--that need only take a few seconds, and the gain is sure to
follow.
_Festina lente_ (hasten slowly) should be in the back of our brains
all day and every day.
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