As we begin, let me give you this reminder from the Word of God. Proverbs 18:9 says: "He also that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great waster."
Our quote for today is from Philip Stanhope. He said: "Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination: never put off till tomorrow what you can do today."
Today, in the Get Things Done podcast we are looking at Part 7 of Step 6: "Get Tough With Yourself".
It's true that our grandparents sometimes carried self-denial and self-restraint too far, and it's easy to find examples we could identify as extreme. But reactions to excess are often excessive, and it's unfortunate that the so-called “culture of narcissism” has completely replaced, for many people, the robust self-mastery proclaimed by Rudyard Kipling:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;...
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run –
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And – which is more – you'll be a Man, my son!
Today we consider Kipling's writing about an empire with dominion over palm and pine to be relics of a bygone age, which indeed they are. But his veneration of the Will – with a capital W, mind you – is right on.