Wise time using article..

This is a how-to book, I found quite interesting to read and follow. It's from Gutenburg Project, which the chapter I posted here is Ch.7. The writer had previously mentioned the importance of 24 hour in a day we all had and the saved time of almost 2 hours we can have everyday. Consequently, in this chapter, he told how to apply a half hour in the morning and an hour and a half into a wise use here. :)

Chapter 7

VIICONTROLLING THE MINDPeople say: "One can't help one's thoughts." But one can. Thecontrol of the thinking machine is perfectly possible. And sincenothing whatever happens to us outside our own brain; since nothinghurts us or gives us pleasure except within the brain, the supremeimportance of being able to control what goes on in that mysteriousbrain is patent. This idea is one of the oldest platitudes, but itis a platitude whose profound truth and urgency most people live anddie without realising. People complain of the lack of power toconcentrate, not witting that they may acquire the power, if theychoose.And without the power to concentrate--that is to say, without thepower to dictate to the brain its task and to ensure obedience--truelife is impossible.

Mind control is the first element of a fullexistence.Hence, it seems to me, the first business of the day should be toput the mind through its paces. You look after your body, insideand out; you run grave danger in hacking hairs off your skin; youemploy a whole army of individuals, from the milkman to the pig-killer, to enable you to bribe your stomach into decent behaviour.Why not devote a little attention to the far more delicate machineryof the mind, especially as you will require no extraneous aid? Itis for this portion of the art and craft of living that I havereserved the time from the moment of quitting your door to themoment of arriving at your office."What? I am to cultivate my mind in the street, on the platform, inthe train, and in the crowded street again?" Precisely. Nothingsimpler! No tools required! Not even a book. Nevertheless, theaffair is not easy.When you leave your house, concentrate your mind on a subject (nomatter what, to begin with). You will not have gone ten yardsbefore your mind has skipped away under your very eyes and islarking round the corner with another subject.Bring it back by the scruff of the neck.

Ere you have reached thestation you will have brought it back about forty times. Do notdespair. Continue. Keep it up. You will succeed. You cannot byany chance fail if you persevere. It is idle to pretend that yourmind is incapable of concentration. Do you not remember that morningwhen you received a disquieting letter which demanded a verycarefully-worded answer? How you kept your mind steadily on thesubject of the answer, without a second's intermission, until youreached your office; whereupon you instantly sat down and wrote theanswer? That was a case in which *you* were roused by circumstancesto such a degree of vitality that you were able to dominate yourmind like a tyrant. You would have no trifling. You insisted thatits work should be done, and its work was done.By the regular practice of concentration (as to which there is nosecret--save the secret of perseverance) you can tyrannise overyour mind (which is not the highest part of *you*) every hour of theday, and in no matter what place.

The exercise is a very convenientone. If you got into your morning train with a pair of dumb-bellsfor your muscles or an encyclopaedia in ten volumes for yourlearning, you would probably excite remark. But as you walk in thestreet, or sit in the corner of the compartment behind a pipe, or"strap-hang" on the Subterranean, who is to know that you areengaged in the most important of daily acts? What asinine boor canlaugh at you?I do not care what you concentrate on, so long as you concentrate.It is the mere disciplining of the thinking machine that counts.But still, you may as well kill two birds with one stone, andconcentrate on something useful. I suggest--it is only asuggestion--a little chapter of Marcus Aurelius or Epictetus.Do not, I beg, shy at their names. For myself, I know nothing more"actual," more bursting with plain common-sense, applicable to thedaily life of plain persons like you and me (who hate airs, pose,and nonsense) than Marcus Aurelius or Epictetus. Read a chapter--and so short they are, the chapters!--in the evening andconcentrate on it the next morning.

You will see.Yes, my friend, it is useless for you to try to disguise the fact.I can hear your brain like a telephone at my ear. You are saying toyourself: "This fellow was doing pretty well up to his seventhchapter. He had begun to interest me faintly. But what he saysabout thinking in trains, and concentration, and so on, is not forme. It may be well enough for some folks, but it isn't in my line."It is for you, I passionately repeat; it is for you. Indeed, youare the very man I am aiming at.Throw away the suggestion, and you throw away the most precioussuggestion that was ever offered to you. It is not my suggestion.It is the suggestion of the most sensible, practical, hard-headedmen who have walked the earth. I only give it you at second-hand.Try it. Get your mind in hand. And see how the process cures halfthe evils of life--especially worry, that miserable, avoidable,shameful disease--worry!