Читать книгу The Pelman System of Mind and Memory Training - Lessons I to XII - Анон - Страница 50

7. The next stage is that of suitable surroundings—in other words opportunities of exercising your desire to do the work on which you have set your heart. Some men are fortunate in getting into the right atmosphere early on in life; others have to fight their way through many obstacles before they secure the proper environment. It was no easy thing for Pasteur to forsake schoolmastering and get into laboratory work – but he did it. Edison found it no light task to leave newspaper selling and become an inventor—and yet he managed it somehow. And smaller men—men of whom you have never heard, and whose names never appear in the newspapers—have had to go through similar experiences.

Now it may be that, as already suggested, you have found the work you like, and therefore the environment is suited to your requirements. Even so, there are many hindrances; and the speed with which you overcome them depends, first on the strength and depth of your liking for your work; next, on the industry and intelligence with which you apply yourself to it. Experience proves, however, that if we take to our daily duties as we take to our tennis, our golf, our baseball, our football, or our cricket—i.e., with zest, we shall soon find our proper sphere of labour.

8. A word now to those who are round pegs in square holes. Don’t change your work until you can see your way clearly to do so. Never let go with one hand until you have gripped with the other. But move steadily in the desired direction; leave no stone unturned, no opportunity unappropriated. Even though you never succeed fully, you will respect yourself the more for having made the attempt.

Let us now see how far we have gone. We began with the fact that human energy is a combination of physical health and mental vigour; and we discovered that this mental vigour was, partly, a thing born in us, by reason of our liking for a special kind of work, and partly a matter of the right environment.

Is there a third factor?

Yes: the physical and mental factors should work together.

This may seem too obvious at first to need statement, but a little reflection will show that a man may have interest in his work and yet suffer from some defect in his physical or mental machinery.