All the Time in the World

I’m not a big admirer of self-help books.  They often seem to be repetitive and leave me thinking, “Well, Duh?”  So many of the solutions seem to be an obvious repeat of things I have heard many times before.  But the advice in one little book I read many, many years ago made an impression and has stayed with me for years. 

The name of the book was How to Live on 24 Hours a Day by Arnold Bennett, first published in 1910. This small book is a little archaic by today’s standard, but if you can get past that, it is full of gems of instruction on how to live a better life.

We are not all equal in the gifts we are born with, money or brains or looks or parentage, but time is the equalizer—we are all born with exactly the same amount of time, twenty-four hours each day.  Bennett advises us not to squander it.

Bennett also advises us not to be too hard on ourselves.  “In setting out on the immense enterprise of living fully and comfortably within the narrow limits of twenty-four hours a day, let us avoid at any cost the risk of an early failure.  I will not agree that, in this business at any rate, a glorious failure is better than a petty success….I am all for the petty success.”  In other words, set modest goals so you can pat yourself on the back when you succeed.

This little book can easily be read in an hour’s setting and can be downloaded free from Gutenberg Press: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2274/2274-h/2274-h.htm

It’s a book I would recommend to those I love.