Happiness: Essays on the meaning of life

by Karl Hilty

The first thing, then, for our modern world to acquire is the conviction and experience that well-directed work is the necessary and universal condition of physical and intellectual health, and for this reason is the way to happiness. From this it necessarily follows that the idle class is to be regarded, not as a superior and favored class, but as that which they are,—spiritually defective and diseased persons who have lost the right principle for the guidance of their lives. As soon as this opinion becomes general and established, then, and only then, will the better era for the world begin. Until that time, the world will suffer from the excessive work of some, balancing the insufficient work of others, and it still remains a question which of these two types is in reality the more unfortunate.

Why is it then that these principles—to which the experience of thousands of years testifies, which any one, whether he works or does not work, can test for himself, and which all the religions and philosophies preach—have not made their just impression? Why is it, for instance, that there are still thousands of women who defend with much passion many passages of Bible-teaching, and yet, with astonishing composure and in opposition to an express command of the Bible, take one day at the most, or perhaps none at all, for work, and six for refined idleness? All this proceeds in large degree from an irrational division and arrangement of work, which thus ill-arranged may indeed become a positive burden.

And this brings me back to the title of my Essay. Instruction in the art of work is possible only for him who is already convinced of my first proposition, that some work is necessary, and who would gladly give himself to work if it were not that, to his surprise, some hindrance confronts him. Yet, work, like every other art, has its ways of dexterity, by means of which one may greatly lessen its laboriousness; and not only the willingness to work, but even the capacity to work, is so difficult to acquire that many persons fail of it altogether.

The first step, then, toward the overcoming of a difficulty is in recognizing the difficulty. And what is the difficulty which chiefly hinders work? It is laziness. Every man is naturally lazy. It always costs one an effort to rise above one’s customary condition of physical indolence. Moral laziness is, in short, our original sin. No one is naturally fond of work; there are only differences of natural and constitutional excitability. Even the most active-minded, if they yielded to their natural disposition, would amuse themselves with other things rather than with work.

Love of work must, therefore, proceed from a motive which is stronger than the motive of physical idleness. And this motive is to be found in either of two ways. It may be a low motive, as, for instance, a passion like ambition or self-seeking, or, indeed, the sense of necessity, as in the preservation of life; or it may be a high motive, like the sense of duty or love, either for the work itself, or for the persons for whom the work is done. The nobler motive has this advantage, that it is the more permanent and is not dependent on the mere success of work. It does not lose its force either through the disheartening effect of failure, or the satisfying effect of success. Thus it happens that ambitious and self-seeking persons are often very diligent workers, but are seldom continuous and evenly progressive workers. They are almost always content with that which looks like work, if it produce favorable conditions for themselves, although it does nothing of this for their neighbors. Much of our mercantile and industrial activity—and, alas! we must add, much of the work of scholars and artists—has this mark of unreality.

If, then, one were to give to a young man entering into life a word of preliminary counsel, it would be this: Do your work from a sense of duty, or for love of what you are doing, or for love of certain definite persons: attach yourself to some great interest of human life—to a national movement for political liberty; to the extension of the Christian religion; to the elevation of the neglected classes; to the abolition of drunkenness; to the restoration of permanent peace among the nations; to social reform; to ballot reform; to prison reform;—there are plenty of such causes inviting us to-day;—and you will soon discover an impulse proceeding from these causes to yourself; and in addition you will have—what at first is a great help—companionship in your work. There should be no young person, man or woman, to-day among civilized nations who is not actively enlisted in some such army of progress. The only means of elevating and strengthening youth, and training it in perseverance, is this: that early in life one is freed from himself, and does not live for himself alone. Selfishness is always enfeebling, and from it proceeds no work that is strong.

I go on to remark that the most effective instrument to overcome one’s laziness in work is the force of habit. Why should we use this mighty force in the service of our physical nature and not put it to use in our higher life as well? As a matter of fact, one can as well accustom himself to work or to self-control, to virtue, or truthfulness, or generosity, as he can to laziness, or self-indulgence, or extravagance, or exaggeration, or stinginess. And this is to be said further—that no virtue is securely possessed until it has become a habit. Thus it is that as a man trains himself to the habit of work, the resistance of idleness constantly diminishes until at last work becomes a necessity. When this happens, one has become free from a very great part of the troubles of life.

There remain a few elementary rules with which one can the more easily find his way to this habit of work. And first among such rules is the knowing how to begin. The resolution to set oneself to work and to fix one’s whole mind on the matter in hand is really the hardest part of working. When one has once taken his pen or his spade in hand, and has made the first stroke, his whole work has already grown easier. There are people who always find something especially hard about beginning their work, and who are always so busy with preparations, behind which lurks their laziness, that they never apply themselves to their work until they are compelled; and then the intellectual and even the physical excitement roused by the sense of insufficient time in which to do one’s work injures the work itself. Other people wait for some special inspiration, which in reality is much more likely to come by means of, or in the midst of, work itself. It is at least my experience that one’s work, while one is doing it, takes on a different look from that which one anticipated, and that one does not reach so many fruitful and new ideas in his times of rest as he does during the work itself. From all this follows the rule, not to postpone work, or lightly to accept the pretext of physical or intellectual indisposition, but to dedicate a definite and well-considered amount of time every day to one’s work. Then, if the “old man,” as St. Paul calls him, is cunning enough to see that he must in any event do some work at a special time and cannot wholly give himself to rest, he may usually be trusted to resolve to do each day that which for each day is most necessary.

Again, there are a great many men, occupied in intellectual work of a productive kind, who waste their time and lose the happiness of work by devoting themselves to the arrangement of their work, or still oftener, to the introduction of their work. As a general rule, no artistic, or profound, or remote introduction to one’s work is desirable. On the contrary, it usually anticipates unsuitably that which should come later. Even if this be doubted, the advice is at any rate good that one’s introduction and one’s title should be written last. Thus composed, they commonly cost no labor. One makes a beginning much more easily when he starts without any preamble, with that chapter of his work with which he is most familiar. For the same reason, when one reads a book, it is well to omit at the first reading the preface and often the first chapter. For my own part, I never read a preface until I have finished a book, and I discover, almost without exception, that when, after reading the book, I turn back for a look at the preface, I have lost nothing by omitting it. Of course, it must be said that there are books of which the preface is the best part. Of these, however, it may also be said that they are not worth reading at all.

And now I may safely take still another step and add, that, with the exception of an introduction to your work or its central treatment, it is best to begin with that part which is easiest to you. The chief thing is to begin. One may indeed advance less directly in his work by doing it unsystematically, but this loss is more than made good by his gain of time. Under this head also should be added two other rules. One is the law: “Take no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.” Man is endowed with the dangerous gift of imagination, and imagination has a much larger realm than that of one’s capacity. Through one’s imagination one sees his whole work lying before him as a task to be achieved all at once, while his capacity, on the other hand, can conquer its task only by degrees, and must constantly renew its strength. Do your work, then, as a rule, for each day. The morrow will come in its own time, and with it will come the strength for the morrow. The second rule is this: In intellectual work one should, indeed, deal with his material thoroughly; but he should not expect to exhaust his material, so that there shall be nothing further left to say or to read. No man’s strength is in these days sufficient for absolute thoroughness. The best principle is to be completely master of a relatively small region of research; and to deal with the larger inquiries only in their essential features. He who tries to do too much usually accomplishes too little.