MAKING HARD WORK OF IT

New Zealand Tablet, 18 January 1912, Page 54

MAKING HARD WORK OF IT

Mark stood watching while Tom was mowing the lawn. Tom was.very, slow about it, he thought., Every now and then he 'stopped to rest and rub his-arms. ‘Come on, hurry up,’ begged Mark, who had plans for the morning which included his friend. - ‘ I can’t do it any faster. It’s hard work,’ Tom complained, and at last Mark climbed down from his post of observation on the steps and took the handle of the mower himself. It was hard work, far harder than it should have been. . , ‘ I know what is the matter,’ Mark exclaimed; the mower needs to be oiled. That’s why it seems so hard.’ But' Tom didn’t know where the oil can was, and privately he thought it was too much bother to stop to oil the mower, anyway, and so he continued to make hard work of what might as well have been simple and 'easy. ' ’ ' _

A great many boys and girls make a like mistake. When you have a piece of work to do, the way to do it quickly and easily is to fix your attention on it. Application is like the oil that makes the lawn-mower run easily. Whenever you do half-hearted, uninterested work, you are doing hard work which might just as well be easy. Try it next time and see.