Valedictory

The real answer is that there is no complete answer valid for all men, just as Shaw said that the Golden rule valid for all men, just as Shaw said that the Golden Rule is that there is no Golden Rule. The answer which is the valid answer for you is contained within yourself.

And only by living your own life can you find it, living that life of yours after the dictates of your own being and not according to any others, be they gods, heroes, saints or sages or books or theories of any kind. What master do you suppose could teach Shakespeare to be Shakespeare? Or what saint could teach Jesus to be Jesus? And none can teach you to be your own self. Yet Shakespeare learned many things from Lyly and other writers, too. Jesus learned from the masters in the temple, and you may have learned something from this book but that something should not prevent, but indeed encourage, you in self realization to the utmost. And because books can help, let me give a list of some most valuable books for instruction upon the self, humanity in general, and the world of beings and things. Learn from books, however, not for learning’s sake but to live. And from living learn again to have life, fuller, richer and deeper from the experience of it. “Life for your life’s sake” is the life of the blade of grass or the rose. These do not live with reference to bigger and better blades of grass or rarer and more perfumed roses. Their nature is satisfied, and they satisfy Nature, in being themselves and living their own lives according to the laws of their own being. Lets us follow these exemplars and live according to the laws of your own being. So shall we get the real utmost out of our life and ourselves? The grass withers, the flower fades. The man or woman dies. But it is enough that they have lived to their own not another’s utmost, and graced their little hour with their being no more, but no less than themselves.

Dealing with others techniques

Hi guys. Perforce, in your way through life, you must deal with your fellows. Even a monk in a monastery or a run in her convent cell cannot altogether escape that necessity. Still less you who aspire to be a sophisticated man or woman of the world, getting the utmost from life in it! Really you can sum up in one word all that you want from the rest of your fellow men and women. That one word is: Goodwill. Is that all you may say, disappointed? Is it really as simple as that? I don’t believe it. Well, consider. Every person you may meet is a potential friend or enemy or indifference. Change the enemy or indifferent into a friend, and the whole world consists of your friends.

A world of friends ready and willing to help you to whatever you want. What do you want? This employer to give you a rise in salary? This relative to leave you money when he dies? This pretty clever girl or handsome rich man to marry you? Or the converse of this last? If you are the most capable and hardworking of workers, will this employer raise your salary if he hates your very guts? He won’t. He’d rather look for another as capable as you and kick you out. But if he likes you and is full of goodwill for you why your salary is raised for the asking.

Planning is a Continuous Function of Management

Planning is an on- going function of management. Planning process is an on-going function of management. Planning process is repeatedly continuous because various managerial functions are over lapping. Further, plans are to be revised in the light of changing environment which also necessitated the continuous performance of planning function in an enterprise.

Planning creates the criteria for control which itself creates the information for new planning. Planning sets action in motion and control monitors the result to see that the plan is actually translated into action. Thus one plan begets another and any point times there are several plans operating in the organization. Planning extends throughout the organization in the form of a hierarchy.

Planning is an all Managers Function: Planning function is required to be performed by managers at all levels. Top executives plans at the top level, middle level managers at the departmental level and foreman at the plant level. Only the scope and extent of planning tend to decrease when move towards the lower levels of management. Planning is useful at all levels and in every organization.

The Right Attitudes to Life

Of fundamental importance to the art of getting the best out of life is the adoption of right attitudes to life. Note the plural. Not the right attitude, as people foolishly say. Life is too infinitely varied for one attitude to be properly applicable to all life and its manifestations. The first necessary attitude that I suggest will probably surprise you. It may strike you (as it struck me when it was suggested to me as a very young soldier in war time by a hardened and seasoned old warrior) as childish and conventional. But after harsh experience of the deaths, wounds and miseries of active service in battle theaters in Europe and Asia, I realized that my mentor was right. He spoke from life experience, not book reading. That first attitude he called Cheerfulness. A better related word for it perhaps is Equanimity. That is to say serenity and poise of mind , which are as necessary to mental health and well-being as serenity and poise of the bodily functions and parts, which spell physical health and well-being.

Cultivate the equable, cheerful, unruffled mind. Keep coal, calm, composed and collected always, and especially in times of crisis. Never give way to depression, doubt or despair. That was one of the secrets of Marlbrough’s success in his worrying continental campaigns. If he could “ride the whirlwind and direct the storm” at Blenheim, Malplaquet, Unguarded and elsewhere, it was because his detached and invincible calm gave everyone else confidence. Stalin the Russian had the same imperturbable characteristic. It was one of the powers of Cromwell on the battlefield also.

Taking stock of your needs

In the last post, in taking stock of oneself as body, mind and spirit, inevitably one had to consider certain needs of those entities, such as food for the mind and food for the body. But the consideration was not exhaustive. There are other important necessities such as clothing and shelter for the body, and travel and other educative influences upon the mind.

It is wise to find out all your individual needs as distinct from the elementary needs that you share with your fellows. Here most people make a great mistake. They confuse their own needs or even their own desires with other people. This is setting up a false and unreal standard of values for yourself out of which no good can come to you.

For example, if you are utterly unmusical it is folly to say: “Music is good. Others find it so. I ought to like it and ought to have it. Therefore, though bored, I will go to operas and promenade concerts because it is the thing to do. Moreover I shall he despised by my musical friends if I do not go. It is the conventional thing to know and appreciate music.”

Would you attend the National Gallery or visit museums if you were blind? No. Then why go to concerts if you are tone-deaf or bored stiff by classical music? Better spend your time (which is your life) and your money (which is the stored up harvest of your life) on something which gives you some return for the expenditure. Upon this matter, never mind what others say or think. You and you alone, are the criterion of your life’s values. Music, art and literature are great things, indeed of inestimable value to some of us. But if after a fair trial they are not great things to you, cut them out ruthlessly.

Can adequate sleep be attained by will and habit?

It is an interesting speculation. Such evidence as I have seems to say not. A strong will seem helpless here. Too much sleep or too little which is the greater evil? Arnold Bennett once spoke of people who “sleep themselves stupid.” (But he himself suffered terribly from sleeplessness, especially in later life.) I doubt if people ever sleep to stupidity. Too little sleep is certainly bad for mental and physical health, much worse than inadequate food or drink.

Also take care not to be over strenuous in games or sports, especially as you grow older. Most people indulge too long in what is unsuited to their years. (But a strained muscle can be painful: a strained heart dangerous.) Other people, as life goes on, drop all, or nearly all, sports and games. Physical drill, too, they come to find boring. The daily routine of livelihood and use and wont absorbs all their energies. Their bodies, the law of which is exercise, suffer accordingly.

Special baths, which are equivalent to exercise, such as Turkish baths and the like, are worth experimenting with, for they are enjoyable and beneficial. Massage by professionals is expensive but beneficial, so self massage of the whole body can be learned and carried out daily. This is enjoyable, beneficial, pleasurable and quite inexpensive, so no more need be said of it here.