Analyzing Character | Page 5

the conclusion of a game players are often unable to walk from the field and need to be carried. Occasionally the winning team has actually worked the harder and received the more serious injuries. Regardless of this fact, it is usually true that the victorious team leaves the field less jaded than the conquered team. Furthermore, the winners will report next day refreshed and ready for further training, while the losers may require several days to overcome the shock and exhaustion of their defeat.
"Recently I had a very hard contest at tennis. Some hours after the game I was still too tired to do effective work. I wondered why, until I remembered that I had been thoroughly beaten, and that, too, by an opponent whom I felt I outclassed. I had been in the habit of playing even harder contests and ordinarily with no discomfort--especially when successful in winning the match.
"What I have found so apparent in physical exertion is equally true in intellectual labor. Writing or research work which progresses satisfactorily leaves me relatively fresh; unsuccessful efforts bring their aftermath of weariness.
"_Intellectual work which is pleasant is stimulating and does not fag one, while intellectual work which is uninteresting or displeasing is depressing and exhausting_....
"To restore muscular and nerve cells is a very delicate process. So wonderful is the human organism, however, that the process is carried on perfectly without our consciousness or volition except under abnormal conditions.
"Food and air are the first essentials of this restoration. In-directly the perfect working of all the bodily organs contributes to the process--especially deepened breathing, heightened pulse, and increase of bodily volume due to the expansion of the blood vessels running just beneath the skin.
"Here pleasure enters. Its effect on the expenditure of energy is to make muscle and brain cells more available for consumption, and particularly to hasten the process of restoration or recuperation.
"The deepened breathing supplies more air for the oxidation of body wastes. The heightened pulse carries nourishment more rapidly to the depleted tissues and relieves the tissues more rapidly from the poisonous wastes produced by work. The body, the machine, runs more smoothly, and few stops for repairs are made necessary.
"In addition to these specific functions, pleasure hastens all the bodily processes which are of advantage to the organism. The hastening may be so great that recuperation keeps pace with the consumption consequent on efficient labor, with the result that there is little or no exhaustion. This is, in physiological terms, the reason why a person can do more when he 'enjoys' his work or play, and can continue his efforts for a longer period without fatigue. The man who enjoys his work requires less time for recreation and exercise, for his enjoyment recharges the storage battery of energy."
But the misfit can take none of this pleasure in his work. He is unhappy because he cannot do his best; he is wretched because he feels that he is being defeated in the contest of life; he is miserable because he hates the things he has to do; he can take no satisfaction in his work because he feels that it is poorly done; and, finally, all of his joylessness reacts upon him, decreasing his efficiency and making him a more pitiable failure.
So this is the vicious circle:
Misfit; Inefficient; Unhappy; More inefficient.
Rather is it a descending spiral, leading down to poverty, disease, crime and death.
Now, consider the man who has found his work. To him the glorious abandonment which is the way to achievement is possible. Such a man does not merely exist--he lives, and lives grandly. His work gives him joy, both in its doing and in its results. It calls out and develops his highest and best talents. He therefore grows in power, in wisdom, in health, in efficiency, and in success. All his life runs in an ascending spiral. No task appalls him. No difficulty daunts him. He may work hard--terribly hard. He may tunnel through mountains of drudgery. He will shun the easy ways and leave the soft jobs to weaker men. But through it all there will be a song in his heart.
Work to such a man is as natural an expression as hunger, or love, or pleasure, or laughter. He returns to it with zest and eagerness. Such a man's work flows out from his soul. It is an expression of the divine in him.
The almost universal cry for leisure is due to the almost universal unfitness of men and women for their tasks. The wise man knows that there is no happiness in leisure. The only happiness is self-expression in useful work. And so we come again to the problem of fitting the man to his work. Every man is a bundle of possibilities. Every man has a right to usefulness, prosperity