When there are so many demands pressing upon us, we should not allow
ourselves to become exhausted by a single act, but should keep
ourselves fresh for further needs. Efficient action, then, is sure,
swift, and easy.
Now the peculiarity of self-consciousness is that it hinders all this
and makes action inaccurate, slow, and fatiguing. Inaccuracy is almost
certain. When we study how something is to be done, we are apt to lay
stress on certain features of the situation, and not to bring others
into due prominence. It is difficult separately to correlate the many
elements which go to make up a desired result. Sometimes we become
altogether puzzled and for the moment the action ceases. When I have
had occasion to drive a screw in some unusual and inconvenient place,
after setting the blade of the screw-driver into the slot I have asked
myself, "In which direction does this screw turn?" But the longer I
ask, the more uncertain I am. My only solution lies in trusting my
hand, which knows a great deal more about the matter than I. When we
once begin to meditate how a word is spelled, how helpless we are! It
is better to drop the question, and pick up the dictionary. In all
such cases consideration tends to confuse.
It tends to delay, too, as everybody knows. To survey all the
relations in which a given act may stand, to balance their relative
gains and losses, and with full sight to decide on the course which
offers the greatest profit, would require the years of Methuselah.
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