Unseen Warfare: Part V

-How to overcome negligence-

To avoid falling into the pernicious evil of negligence, which will stop your progress towards perfection and deliver you into the hands of enemies, you must flee all kinds of inquisitiveness (trying to find out what’s here, or what’s there, idle wandering, empty chatter, gaping around), any kind of cleaving to something earthly, all arbitrary actions or ‘doing what I like’, which is totally out of keeping with your position.

Never delay in undertaking any work you have to do, for the first brief delay with lead to a second, more prolonged one, and the second to a third, still longer, and so on. Thus work begins too late and is not done in its proper time, or else is abandoned altogether, as something too burdensome. Having once tasted the pleasure of inaction, you begin to like and prefer it to action. In satisfying this desire, you will little by little form a habit of inaction and laziness, in which the passion for doing nothing will possess you to such an extent that you will cease even to see how incongruous and criminal it is; except perhaps when you weary of this laziness, and are again eager to take up your work. Then you will see with shame how negligent you have been and how many necessary works you have neglected, for the sake of the empty and useless ‘doing what you like’.

Scarcely perceptible at first, this negligence permeates everything and not only poisons the will, planting in it aversion to all kind of effort and all forms of spiritual doing and obedience, but also blinds the mind, and prevents it from seeing all the folly and falsehood of the arguments which support this disposition of will; for it hinders the mind from presenting to the consciousness the sound reasoning, which would have the power of moving the slothful will to perform the work quickly; each thing has to be done in its proper time, as required by its nature, and needs to be performed with full attention and care, to make it as perfect as possible.

If an evil thought comes to try and cast you into negligence, and suggests that the work necessary to acquire the virtue you love and desire is extremely long and hard, that your enemies are strong and numerous, while you are weak and alone, that you must do much, and perform great deeds to attain your aim; if, I say, the thought of negligence suggests all this to you, do not listen to it. On the contrary, look at the mater this way: of course you must work hard, but not much, you must undertake labors, but they are very small and will not last long; you will meet enemies, but instead of many there will be only one, and, although he strong, you are incomparably stronger. If you have this attitude, negligence will begin to retreat from you and in its place, under the influence of good thoughts and feelings, there will gradually enter into you a diligent zeal in everything, which will finally possess all the powers of your soul and body.

Do the same in relation to manual work and the tasks of your obedience. Sometimes your tasks may seem too many; you become flustered and are ready to give them up. But refrain from thinking of their great number; instead, force yourself, take up the most immediate task and do it with diligence, as though the others did not exist; and you will do it without trouble. Then do the same in relation to the other tasks, and you will finish them all calmly, without fuss and bother.

Behave thus in everything, and know that, if you do not listen to reason and do not thus try to overcome the sense of burden and difficulty, which the enemy presents to you in the tasks which lie before you, then negligence will finally take complete possession of you. Then you will feel as if you were carrying a mountain on your shoulders, not only when you are faced with some immediate task, but even when it is still far ahead; you will be weighed down and tormented by it, like a slave bound in slavery with no hope of release. Then, even at times of rest, you will have no rest, and will feel yourself overburdened with work, even while doing nothing.

Know also, my child, that this disease of laziness and negligence gradually undermines with its poison not only the first small roots out of which virtuous habits may grow, but even those which are already deep rooted and serve as a foundation of the whole order of righteous life. As a worm gradually gnaws at the root of a tree, so negligence, if it persists, insensibly wears away and manages to spread his nets and set the snares of temptations for every man; and exerts particular care and sly cunning in the case of those who are zealous in spiritual life, knowing that a lazy and negligent man easily submits to lusts and falls, as it is written: “the soul of the sluggard desires, and has nothing’.

So be ever watchful, and take good care of everything good, as it behooves a courageous warrior: ‘The hands of the courageous are ever diligent’. He who gave you this morning has not bound himself with the promise to give you the evening too. Remember that the time you have in your hands is priceless and if you waste it uselessly, the hour will come when you will seek and not find it. Consider as lost a day when, although performing good deeds, you have not struggled to overcome your bad tendencies and desires. To end my lesson on this subject, I shall repeat the commandment: ‘Fight the good fight’ always. For one hour of diligent work has often gained heaven and one hour of negligence has lost it.