p. 359 | PROCRASTINATION

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · June 3, 1880

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 23

PROCRASTINATION

Mrs. Whitney says, in one of her books, that “the things that are crowded out of a life are the test of that life,” and we believe that the saying is true in its widest sense. Examine our lives closely, and we shall find that we constantly delude ourselves with the idea that we could accomplish certain things if we had time, when in truth we have no real desire for those things. One person will say that reading is out of the question, another will bewail the impossibility of maintaining social relations, a third will avow that charitable or benevolent enterprises would delight her if she might only engage in them; and all the time the good people are comforting themselves with a fallacy. The things for which they do find time are the things they prefer. The things which are crowded out are the things they would not choose, if life lay unemployed before them.

Scores of wives and mothers are busied constantly with their family cares, but not one in every score loves music enough to steal time for practice. Hundreds of young men are forced by stress of circumstances to work hard for daily subsistence, but only one in a thousand, perhaps, conquers the difficulties of his position, and makes for himself a name. This one might not have found his way easier or its upward steps less toilsome, but he wanted to succeed, and so wanting, he let nothing needful be crowded out.

And what is true of things mental or moral, is true of things spiritual. If we neglect the duties that bring peace to our souls,—prayer and reading God's holy word,—we need not excuse ourselves by saying or thinking that we have “no little time.” We must find time. Hours and opportunities must yield their fruit to us; conscience must not be soothed by evasions too flimsy to bear the test of serious thought.—Christian Intelligencer.