Uncommon Sense

By John Blake

Don’t Borrow—Even From Yourself

Wasting the time that you will need by and by is borrowing from yourself.  You are generous now, but you will not be so generous by and by when you need the time.  Using up your physical energy faster than nature can repair is also borrowing from yourself.  And that is a loan you will never be able to repay, which will make a physical bankrupt of you.

Perhaps the most destructive habit there is, is that of borrowing. It is easily formed, and it soon gets an iron grip on its victim. The money borrower is fortunately limited by the good nature of friends, which is never inexhaustible.  When he finds that nobody will lend him any more money, he has to stop borrowing. But the man who borrows his own time or his own energy can keep on till there is no more time and no more energy, and then he is what the vulgar call “through.”

Conservation of time and strength is absolutely necessary if you hope by and by to be more than you are today, or even as much as you are today. Employ your time wisely and it is saved, for the time you will need by and by will be open. Borrow days or weeks or months in which to idle, and when the days and weeks and months are needed later on to earn your living in, they will have to be devoted to the drudgery that you ought to be doing today.

Borrow your strength to squander in self indulgence, and when you need it, it will be gone forever.

Get out of the habit of borrowing.  Don’t borrow money or books or anything that you cannot replace instantly when the time for the loans has expired. Borrow sparingly, if at all, and never borrow from yourself, for you are too good natured to be a lender, and a loan from yourself to yourself results in a double penalty in the end.

-       Copyrighted 1920