WORK AND PLEASURE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19737, 13 March 1926, Page 8

WORK AND PLEASURE.

Years ago, when the time was drawing near for me to take life seriously and to go out into the world to earn my own living, a hind and gracious adviser bade me to be sure to take the work which would make me happiest. “For,” she said, “if your work does not make you happy, it is not the right work, no matter how much money it may bring you. And when,” she added, “you have found the right work, you will find that it will prove to be not work at all, but pleasure.” At the time, and for some while after, I thought her words sounded optimistic, or perhaps that her own experience had been exceptional. But it was one of those phrages that are destined to sound in one’s ears again and again through life. It seemed to me then that to prophesy that “work would not be work, but pleasure,” was to talk about the millenmm. To my mind, work was a thing which should occupy seven, eight, or nine hours of one’s ‘day, and should be done efficiently, conscientiously, and honestly; but only when it was done and finished with could one begin to find one’s pleasure, really to enjoy life. Work might be interesting; it could scarcely be° entertaining. Work—so it appeared to mo in those early day.s of inexperience w as one thing, pleasure and enjoyment another. That the two could never be combined was doubtful, and that they might be identical never entered my head. Now, however, I am constantly being reminded of the wisdom and truthfulness of that advice, which, to my mind, could be given with advantage to any young person about to choose a path through life. It may be argued that all are not as lucky as I was, in finding work so interesting and so much to one s liking; and while I agree that some may fall short of achieving the “summum bonum” in the way of an occupation, still, I hold that that advice helps _in taking a saner and more reasonable view of something which must, after all. occupy the major part of one’s life. If I had to start over again, I would be thankful for that piece of good counsel, which urged me to seek happiness in my work, and which, as a corollary, me, having found it, not to stint myself, but put all my energy, all my interest, all my life into the task.— Francis Louise Stevenson (Private Secretary to Mr Lloyd George) in “Good Housekeeping.”