Doing Things Twice

Evening Round-Up
by William Crosbie Hunter

(Page 5 of 14)

A Common Habit That Saps Nerve Power

It is hard enough to do duty once, but doubly hard when you anticipate mentally everything you have to do tomorrow.

This doing things twice is a habit easily acquired if you don't watch out, and it means wasted energy.

I have just read the experience of a housewife who was resting on a couch reading; her eye caught sight of a book lying on the floor across the room.

Instantly her mindometer, if I may coin a word, registered, "when you get up, pick up that book."

She went on reading, but her mind was not on the magazine she held, but on that book on the floor.

So obsessed did she become that she was miserable until she got up and picked up the book.

I was talking with a woman who was resting on her porch; her day's work was over. She was dressed for the afternoon. Everything in the home was neat, sweet, clean and tidy. All serene but her face, and that was the window through which I saw worry working overtime.

By strategy I learned the trouble, and here is her story: "Tomorrow a lot of fruit will be ready to preserve. I am worrying where I shall put it. My fruit closet is full."

The woman had every reason to say to herself "sufficient unto the day," yet she was doing the preserving mentally today and tomorrow she would do the work physically.

A tired mind is harder to rest than a tired body, so we must nip this advance mental work in the bud.

We have all had mental obsessions of worrying about the things we were going to take on our trip; then worrying over the routine of our work when we return from our trip.

If the housewife looks over her week's work and washes the dishes, makes the beds, cooks the meals, dresses the children, mends the clothes, in her imagination, before she does them in reality, she is indeed a hard working woman.

It's all right to plan your work; that's economy in mental expenditure, for it simplifies, systematizes, and saves work.

Plan your work in advance, but do not keep your mind on the plans until the work is done.

When you have planned, then close the mental book of tomorrow's duty, and turn to pleasures, rest, relaxation and enjoyment of today.

These little round-ups we have each evening are fine to switch the thought current from tomorrow's duties.

It is to get a definite, different thought habit fixed, that I ask you to give me these few minutes each day when we may consider various phases of life, science, pleasure, morals and mental refreshment.

True we can only have a fleeting look at things, but we'll get enough, I hope, to freshen your minds, change the humdrum, and elicit interest in things.

Maybe these round-ups we have will help us, and keep us from working mentally tomorrow's physical work.

If these evening talks interest you, help clear your vision, help cheer you, help rest you, then they are good for you, and be cause they help you they certainly benefit me and make me very happy, because happiness comes from doing something for others.

I write as the mood strikes me, or as a phase of life comes before me, or as an idea strikes in and just won't let go until I grasp my pen and let the words flow.

I mean this book is human, and not a studied literary effort.

Just get the human viewpoint and don't criticize the words used or the sentences I construct.

I want to reach you right there alone in the room where you are reading this, and I want the suggestions, the good, the help, to soak in and I want you to pass the good you get to your brother; you won't lose a bit by so doing.

Published by Hunter Service Kansas City, Mo., USA
Copyright 1915 by WM. C. Hunter