Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-03-04
Life'S Problems
Are Discussed
BY MRS WILSON WOODROW.

BY MRS WILSON WOODROW.
What is the next thing you are go
ing to do?
Everybody has some pet plan or
purpose in view, some project or am
bition he has long cherished. but
which for one reason or another he
has never been able to carry out.
To take an illustration from the
most familiar. have never yet
known an author who did not have
an especial story which he wanted to
write, which he fully intended some
time to write, and yet which some
how never gets written. And l sup
pose the same rule holds in every
other vocation-with the inventor
and the musician, the artist, the
salesman. the manufacturer, the me-
chanic. the farmer and the financier.
And the reason is that every one
of us fritters away his time. We are
as prodiGal with our minutes and
even our half-hours as we used to be
in the old wasteful, pre-Hoover days
with our sugar and our flour.
Now time, as we all learned from
our copy-books. is money. But it is
more than that-wisely used. it is
reputation. success. the very pinnacle
of achievement. 1t is mans most
valuable asset. and the one he usually
values least, until he sees it running
low. Think what it might have meant
to the science of aviation If a few
more years had been granted to Will
bur Wright, to American literature If
Jack London and o. Henry had staid
with us a little longer Think what
1t would have meant to human prog
ress If Abraham Lincoln had lived
through another decade.
Yet we all squander time as reck-
lessly as the proverbial drunken
sailor does his pay. We allow our
selves to be drawn off constantly into
side issues of the most doubtful ad-
vantage to ourselves If any. We per-
nit ourselves to be imposed on by
time sponges and deadbeats, and lack
the nerve to call a halt on it.
The most important person In the
world to each of us is himself, and
the one whose claims should be first
considered. l don't mean by that to
uphold selhshness or a lack of pub
lie spirit. One owes something both
to his nelghbor and to the commun-
ity in which he lives. But one has
right to resent being robbed.
In great emergency, such as we
have just passed through, and where
so many were freely Offering their
lives. 1t was not too much to ask that
one should give all. both of time and
of substance. But we are returning
now to normal conditions. and in view
of the wreckage of war and the great
amount of work to be done. 1t stands
us all In hand to take stock of what
we have and make careful provi-
sion.
What. then. of the great asset.
Time? We have seen how by a con-
certed effort of the whole people to
restrict waste in just a few staples
vast tons of those commodities have
been saved, and that. too, without
actual hardship to anybody. Imagine
then the years and centuries and ages
of wasted time that could be saved IL
a similar effort were applied in that
direction.
And that does not mean any
of the periods we give
up to amusement and relaxation and
seeing our friends and the calls of
charity or public service and the
pursuit of our various hobbies, AS a
matter of fact, we should probably
have more leisure for all those
things. 1t simply means we should
do with our time as the housewives
did with food. and keep an eye on the
garbage pail.
This is an era of budgets. The fa-
vorite indoor sport this winter, L un-
derstand, is to gather around the
family lamp with pencil and paper
and fund the family income. Every
magazine one picks up has a half
dozen or more advertisements of vari-
Gus systems to promote domestic
economy. The old dragon. the High
Cost of Living, is being assailed on
every side by valiant st. Georges
armed with carefully ruled columns
and methodically entered figures.
II it's good plan to budget ones