EXCESSIVE ENTHUSIASM

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5201, 9 November 1927, Page 3

EXCESSIVE ENTHUSIASM

APPLICATION IN BUSINESS. DANGER IN RECREATION. is no real reason why we should suffer, as we all do at time^, - from the Monday morning feeling,” said Sir Charles Wakefle\d, addressing . teachers from all parts of the world at a recent Vacation Course 1 London. “ There is no virtue in an excessive devotion to work if it brings in itsi train this reaction. > Some there .are who, possessed of great powers of application, do not see that there is danger and unwisdom even in the role; ; of the industrious apprentice. ‘All’work and no play’ hasi results which have become proverbial and the proverb is sober truth. “A wise employer will try to persuade the man whose only talent is a capacity for .work to exercise his gift in moderation. There is a temptation to let the- born worker ‘ gang his ain gait,’ but the results are often disastrous. Far too many men retire after a life of extreme devotion to a narrow business routine, only to find that they have no other interest in life, They do not die, they simply fade away, like old soldiers. Rut it f is, in truth, a tragedy,

“ There are also the giants of commerce who suffer from the same misconception. They have wonderful organising powers and a profound knowledge of human nature, added to this abnormal obsession of work. But they too, sometimes fail to find the happy medium, and show in their lives a narrow concentration upon the affairs of the mart that is; unfortunate. There is no doubt that the happy medium, a phrase I prefer to th© golden mean, is a characteristic which is a part of the British genius. It is unfortunate that to-day it seems to be under somewhat of a cloud. We would appear almost to be in danger of becoming a nation of extremists. “We can, no doubt, neglect the extreme cases, the tennis enthusiast, football fan, bridge fiend, or chess maniac, whose devotion is scarcely to be distinguished from monomania. But most of us have some one idea that we indulge beyond the limits of reason. A craving for settled habit rather than happiness would appear to rule us. Do we not all know the people who go every Monday and Thursday to the pictures ? They have done ,<SO for years, and although they scarcely realise it, they thave ceased to be critically or intelligently aware of what they see. It is a habit that chains them, habit that blinds them to their excessive devotion.

“The radio, similarly, is a great boon, but it has rapidly become merely a habit for many of us. The loud speaker is switched on at regular but the listening is perfunctheard of a case recently 'where a doctor visited a sick child. The loud speaker was, at full blast, and he was compelled to ask the parents to turn it off so that he might listen to the littlej patient’s breathing. The apology took this form : ‘So sorry, wejhad forgotten it was on. In other words, they ihad so far gone beyond the happy medium in their listening that they were no longer capable of hearing thq instrument, at all, except by an effort of will."’