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Thursday, April 6, 2000
One year ago: Surprise
Two years ago: Dining
Al Schroeder of Nova Notes was talking about Robert Benchley's book, My Ten Years in a Quandary. It's a favorite of mine, too! Here's a selection:
HEALTH AND WORK
A rather horrible bit of news has just come to this desk.
We are informed that the eminent surgeon Dr. G.W. Crile
has gone on record as saying that "with proper attention
to health a person's active life in business should
extend to the age of eighty years." What is this man
Crile -- an alarmist?
In the first place, how can a person give "proper attention
to health" and still remain in "active life in business"?
It is hard enough just to remain in active business without
monkeying around with your health. "Let well enough alone"
would be my advice to anyone with an active business.
Furthermore, what is so tantalizing about the idea of
staying in active business life until the age of eighty?
I know that there are supposed to be veterans who simply
have to patter down to the office or the foundry every day,
just out of sheer love of the thing, but they must also
have some other reason for their devotion to work. There
must be someone at home who gets on their nerves.
* * * * * * * *
Anyone who has given what Dr. Crile calls "proper attention
to health" should, by the age of fifty, be so sick of his
work that he can't even glance through the trade papers
without gagging. Any further exertion on his part is either
because of necessity or is just sheer affectation.
Don Herold once wrote some obiter dicta, in the course
of a book on something else, which have always been a great
comfort to me. At the bottom of a page, in small italic
type apparently dropped there by the printer, he said
simply: "Work is a form of nervousness." It had no
connection with the rest of the page, but it might have
been made into a book by itself.
Mr. Herold is the man who also wrote that during the
trying period when his young daughter was having her teeth
straightened her mouth looked like the back of a telephone
switchboard. This, together with his epic expose of work,
qualifies him, in my mind, for the position of the Moses
of our generation.
* * * * * * * *
"Work is a form of nervousness." Just think that over.
It has the wisdom of the ages in it. And then think of
Dr. Crile's threat that, with proper attention to health,
a man can still be active in business at eighty. How are
the other people in the office going to like having a
nervous octogenarian lunging about the place?
The thing to do is to make so much money that you don't
have to work after the age of twenty-seven. In case
this is impracticable, stop work at the earliest possible
moment, even if it is at a quarter past eleven on the
morning of the day when you find you do have enough
money. Then will be time enough to pay proper attention
to your health. What is the sense of being in good
health if you have to work?
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