BACK TO WORK.

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 3, Issue 258, 15 January 1941, Page 4

BACK TO WORK.

NOW that the holiday cobwebs are blowing away, and the mind of the average person has grown to realise that annual vacations are of necessity separated by tedious months of toil and routine it is opportune to take stock of our surroundings and study our reactions (if any) towards our accepted occupations. When all is said and done, were it not for work, we: should see little pleasure in life, for it is only the necessity to toil which gives light and shade to our existance. ''Were it not for handy occupation" said Sir Isaac Newton, "I would not enjoy myself; I would not enjoy nature; and as a man I should be slowly killing my soul." This from so great a mind is sound advice for we know that the happiest persons are the busiest. Idleness is a punishment and if it is carried far enough assumes all the undermining influences of enforced confinement. Pleasure can only be drawn from holiday when it has been earned; when by contrast relaxation can be enjoyed to the full after a year's genuine labour and effort. But the forthcoming year is likely to be an abnormally busy one for the average person in Whakatane. There are fresh responsibilities thrust upon the citizens of our town and the residents of our district. The average person settling down to routine again must adjust himself or herself to the calls likely to be made upon their time and labour owing to the war for freedom which is daily coming closer to our shores and is daily approaching a little closer to its dreaded peak. Time must be made for Patriotic work, duty demands that training should also be undertaken in the Home Guard units, loyalty demands that the utmost effort should be made to maintain production. These are the unusual factors to which the average must accustom themselves. The world of realities lies in the routine of our yearly round. Vacations allow us merely to dispense with them momentarily. During the year we must be prepared to face further Civic farewells, to members of the fighting forces drawn from the youth of this district. Their absence will be felt in a growing measure in industry and: in business. The shortage # of labour will strive for a growing stranglehold upon our ability to carry on and produce., and it will be on us, who remain at home to fight and overcome that grip by a counter effort just as strong and a will that can nerver give in when it is backed by the sacred trust imposed in us by the right and justness of our cause. After-holiday fustiness can and does occur even in war-time and it is only now after a week or two back in the traces that we are able to adjust our lives to the surrounding's in field, office or mill which after all return us our daily bread and offer us by contrast the bright prospect of the next annual holiday which is already on the way.