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MENTAL LOAFING

IT is considered a disgrace to be lazy. He who is too indolent to work for his own living becomes a by-word and reproach. But there is a very common form of laziness which is not always noticed. It is that of mind. We first become conscious of it in our young days, when we “don’t feel like study.” We dawdle over our thoughts half asleep, and, as a result, give a fine exhibition of stupidity in the recitation room. It is true that disinclination to study sometimes grows out of fatigue and illness. The liver is responsible for much of it; but in the majority of cases it is pure laziness, as young people will discover if they will shake themselves up and go resolutely to work.

This sort of indolence in youth is very dangerous, for it becomes a habit, and the mind grows rusty and dull in the very prime of life, when it should be at its best. And on the heels of this form of laziness comes another bad habit, that of intellectual loafing. What loafing is in the common sense, all know. It is hanging about with no definite aim or purpose, idling away the time without method and without profit. Well, there is mental loafing as well, and it is known in the dictionary as reverie. It is a dreamy state of the mind, when the thoughts go wool-gathering. The fancy sails away into fantastic seas, and revels in unreal things till the wits are fairly benumbed and unfitted for sober work.

This habit, so common to young people, is fatal to mental growth. Many a promising youth is ruined by over-indulgence in it. It wastes time and enfeebles the mental powers. It is really a form of laziness, and it should be sternly corrected at the very outset. The action of the mind should be kept under control. When the thoughts begin to wander, it is time to whip them into order. A resolute will will do it.—Selected.

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“EVERY true disciple has often found that the work he took up painfully from a sense of duty became to him a source of special joy. On this path are the shining footprints of the Master.”

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— September, 1887 —