KEEPING FIT. Orison Swett Marden

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ

      There are, on the other hand, many men and women who cut down their fitness and ultimate efficiency by continually overdoing and never allowing themselves a good time. They go to the other extreme.

      I know self-made men who formed such iron habits of work when they started as poor boys, when their success depended upon working a great many hours every day, that they have become slaves to the habit. No matter whether they feel like it or not, they compel themselves to remain in their offices or factories just so many hours a day, when, perhaps, three-fourths of the time they are merely mechanically forcing their brains to do very ordinary work. They could accomplish more and better work in less than half the time with fresh, vigorous brains and minds elastic and spontaneous. They do not realize that a mind that is habitually held to its task by will-power for long hours after a time becomes permanently injured by losing its spring or resilience, just as a bow would lose its power to rebound if it were always strung.

      These men know this principle very well, and they can see that their friends who are doing the same thing are making a great mistake in straining so, in not going away now and then to get freshened up or renewed, with a new view of things and a fresh outlook on life and business. They plainly see their neighbors’ mistake in not putting themselves in the way of that rejuvenation which comes from an entire change of environment.

      Business men often give as an excuse for always grinding at their work and for too seldom taking vacations that they haven’t time, but when they do have a little leisure they will surely take “a day or two off.”

      Is there any shorter-sighted policy than for one to overwork and strain, to plod away for months and years with dull mental tools, and to plead as an excuse that he can’t afford to take time to sharpen them, thus putting himself in a state of physical and mental fitness?

      What a strange thing that a long-headed, shrewd business man cannot see the deteriorated product of his exhausted mind; cannot see that the everlasting grinding of work out of tired brains and dull, jaded faculties is very poor business!

      One of the greatest dangers in our strenuous American life is the temptation to overstrain under high pressure. Men are continually overdrawing their physical bank accounts by using up their reserve capital, and before they realize it they become physically bankrupt.

      As a very noted medical authority said recently: “While we do know a great deal more about hygiene and have been able to conquer many diseases, especially infectious diseases, which formerly, through our ignorance, carried away vast multitudes of human beings every year, yet the increased cost of living, the greater struggle for existence, our more exciting, more strenuous, nerve-racking life have increased our vitality tension, nerve tension, and brain tension. As a consequence, our worries, anxieties, and cares are greatly augmented. The wear and tear of life is greater than formerly because we are living a more complex life and are getting farther and farther away from the simple things of other days.”

      Anything which tends to lower our vitality or sap our energy cuts down, by so much, our efficiency and possibilities.

      Perfect health is a great discoverer of ability. It brings out resourcefulness, inventiveness, and initiative, which would be covered up and buried by poor health. Physical and mental fitness means new hope, new life, new power. There is a vast amount of ability lost to the world through poor health, through not keeping in condition to give out the best that is enfolded in us.

      There are many people of a high order of ability who do very ordinary work in life and whose careers are most disappointing, simply because they do not keep themselves in physical and mental condition to do their best.

      I know men in middle life who are just where they were when they left school or college. They have not advanced a particle; some have even retrograded, and they cannot understand why they do not get on, why they are not more successful. But every one who knows them sees the great handicaps of indifference to their health, neglect of their physical needs, dissipation, irregular living, slipshod, slovenly habits, and other unfortunate things which are keeping them down—handicaps with which even intellectual giants could not drag along and make much progress.

      In every walk of life we see people plodding along in mediocrity, capable of great things, but doing little things, because they have not vitality enough to push their way and overcome the obstacles in their path. They have not kept themselves fit.

      Most of us are our own worst enemies. We expect a great deal of ourselves, yet we do not put ourselves in a condition to achieve. We are either too indulgent to our bodies, or we are not indulgent enough. We pamper them or we neglect them, and it would be hard to tell which mode of treatment produces the worst results.

      How humiliating to feel ambition throbbing within us to do a great thing, to feel conscious of ability to accomplish it, yet to be prevented by lack of physical stamina, staying power, vitality! What a deplorable thing to come within sight of one’s goal and suffer the pangs of thwarted ambition because of poor health!

      There are tens of thousands of people who are almost successful, who have almost done the things they started out to do, but who cannot get any farther because their health has broken down; or, it may be, because of some physical weakness or diseased organs, due often to eating wrong things through ignorance, when scientific food and scientific living would not only have carried them to the goal, but would also have brought them there in superb condition.

      It is no less sad to see people reach their goals in an exhausted, played-out condition, with health ruined; so that, although they have achieved their ambition, the power of enjoyment is gone.

      No one can amount to much in this world until he has had an understanding with himself that he is going to stand for something, that he is going to make a man of himself; until he resolves not to be satisfied with a half-life or a cheap success, for he is going to play the part of a man, going to make good, no matter what the cost in effort, no matter what the sacrifice of ease and pleasure. But he must never forget that the basis of all achievement is health; that, even if he reaches the goal of his ambition and leaves his health on the way, he is not a real success.

      The first requisite of success and happiness for every human being is to be a first-class animal. One can accomplish wonderful things with no other capital than robust health and determination to make something of oneself; but, no matter how much ambition one has, if he ruins his health by neglect, or by vicious habits; if he devitalizes himself by an abnormal or irregular life, he should know that his only chance of accomplishing anything very important will soon be gone. Unless one keeps himself at the top of his condition, the best that is in him will not respond to his efforts. He must be satisfied with even second or third best results if his physical condition is run down, if his vitality is lowered by violating the laws of existence or by irregularities of living.

      A stream cannot rise higher than its fountain head. If one’s physical condition is low, if he is devitalized, his ambition suffers, his ideals are lowered, his energies lag, and his work is poor. As a general rule, our physical condition is reflected in everything we do. If the mind is cloudy or suffering or affected by weakness or disease, the condition is reflected in the work. Everything in a man corresponds with his physical condition. All of his defects or weaknesses of this kind will reappear in whatever he does, and his mental condition will always harmonize with his physical state.

      Yet how often we see young people starting out in life with great ambitions to make places for themselves in the world and to do things worth while, but all the time really ruining their possibilities of great accomplishment by ignoring the laws of health, in all sorts of ways lowering their physical status, enfeebling themselves so that they do not have sufficient power to attain their ideals. The very thing that they are most dependent upon for attaining their object, strong and vigorous vitality, they sacrifice.

СКАЧАТЬ