Are you an unusually persevering and persistent person? Or, like most of us, do you sometimes find it difficult to stick to the job until it is done? What is your usual experience in this respect?
Is it not this that you work steadily along until all of a sudden you become conscious of a feeling of weariness, crying "Enough" for the time being, and that you then yield to the impulse to stop?
Assuming that this is what generally happens, does this feeling of fatigue, this impulse to rest, mean that your mental energy is exhausted?
Suppose that by a determined effort of your will you can force your lagging brain to press on. There will invariably come a new supply of energy, a "second wind," enabling you to forge ahead with a freshness and vigor that is surprising after the previous lassitude.
It does not have to be only once. The same process may be repeated a second time and a third time, each new effort of the will being followed by a successful renewal of energy.
Many a man will tell you that he does his best work in the wee hours of the morning, after tedious hours of persevering but fruitless effort. Instead of being exhausted by its long hours of persistent endeavor, the mind seems now to rise to the acme of its power, to achieve its supreme accomplishments. Difficulties melt into thin air and profound problems find easy solution. Flights of genius manifest themselves. Yet long before midnight he perhaps felt himself yield to fatigue and resorted to taking stimulants to keep himself awake.
The existence of this reserve supply of energy is manifested in physical as well as mental effort.
Men who work with their minds and men who work with their hands, scholars and marathon runners, must alike testify to the existence of reserve supplies of power not ordinarily drawn upon.
If we do not always or habitually utilize this reserve power, it is simply because we have accustomed ourselves to yield at once to the first strong feeling of fatigue.
Evidence of this same fact appears in our feelings on different days. How often does a man get up from his breakfast table after a long night's rest, when he should be feeling fresh and invigorated, and say, "I don't feel like working today." And it may take him until afternoon to get into his workday stride, if, indeed, he reaches it at all.
You cannot be immune from the feeling on certain days that you are not at your best. Somehow or other, your wits seem blurry. You hesitate to undertake important endeavors and your interest lags. When crises arise in your business, you feel weighted down and unable to meet them with that shrewd discernment and decisiveness of action of which you are completely capable.
But you realize, in your inmost resources of your mind, that if you continue to exert the will and persistently hold yourself to the business at hand, sooner or later you will warm to the work. Your enthusiasm will transpire, the fog will be dispelled, and the husks will fly. Yet you have had no rest; on the contrary, you have, by continued conscious effort, consumed more and more of your vital energy. Obviously it was not rest that you needed.
What you required was the impulse of some strong desire that should carry you over the threshold of that first inertia into the wide field of reserve energy so rarely called upon and so rich in power.
Under the lashings of necessity, or the spur of love or ambition, you can accomplish feats of mental and physical endurance of which you would have supposed yourself incapable. Never underestimate the power of your will. It can serve you well.
submitted by Audie Perove
Is it not this that you work steadily along until all of a sudden you become conscious of a feeling of weariness, crying "Enough" for the time being, and that you then yield to the impulse to stop?
Assuming that this is what generally happens, does this feeling of fatigue, this impulse to rest, mean that your mental energy is exhausted?
Suppose that by a determined effort of your will you can force your lagging brain to press on. There will invariably come a new supply of energy, a "second wind," enabling you to forge ahead with a freshness and vigor that is surprising after the previous lassitude.
It does not have to be only once. The same process may be repeated a second time and a third time, each new effort of the will being followed by a successful renewal of energy.
Many a man will tell you that he does his best work in the wee hours of the morning, after tedious hours of persevering but fruitless effort. Instead of being exhausted by its long hours of persistent endeavor, the mind seems now to rise to the acme of its power, to achieve its supreme accomplishments. Difficulties melt into thin air and profound problems find easy solution. Flights of genius manifest themselves. Yet long before midnight he perhaps felt himself yield to fatigue and resorted to taking stimulants to keep himself awake.
The existence of this reserve supply of energy is manifested in physical as well as mental effort.
Men who work with their minds and men who work with their hands, scholars and marathon runners, must alike testify to the existence of reserve supplies of power not ordinarily drawn upon.
If we do not always or habitually utilize this reserve power, it is simply because we have accustomed ourselves to yield at once to the first strong feeling of fatigue.
Evidence of this same fact appears in our feelings on different days. How often does a man get up from his breakfast table after a long night's rest, when he should be feeling fresh and invigorated, and say, "I don't feel like working today." And it may take him until afternoon to get into his workday stride, if, indeed, he reaches it at all.
You cannot be immune from the feeling on certain days that you are not at your best. Somehow or other, your wits seem blurry. You hesitate to undertake important endeavors and your interest lags. When crises arise in your business, you feel weighted down and unable to meet them with that shrewd discernment and decisiveness of action of which you are completely capable.
But you realize, in your inmost resources of your mind, that if you continue to exert the will and persistently hold yourself to the business at hand, sooner or later you will warm to the work. Your enthusiasm will transpire, the fog will be dispelled, and the husks will fly. Yet you have had no rest; on the contrary, you have, by continued conscious effort, consumed more and more of your vital energy. Obviously it was not rest that you needed.
What you required was the impulse of some strong desire that should carry you over the threshold of that first inertia into the wide field of reserve energy so rarely called upon and so rich in power.
Under the lashings of necessity, or the spur of love or ambition, you can accomplish feats of mental and physical endurance of which you would have supposed yourself incapable. Never underestimate the power of your will. It can serve you well.
submitted by Audie Perove
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