It must be respected,but it must not be worshipped as a fetish.A programme of daily employ is not a religion.
This seems obvious.Yet I know men whose lives are a burden to themselves and a distressing burden to their relatives and friends simply because they have failed to appreciate the obvious."Oh,no,"I have heard the martyred wife exclaim,"Arthur always takes the dog out for exercise at eight o'clock and he always begins to read at a quarter to nine.So it's quite out of the question that we should..."etc.,etc.And the note of absolute finality in that plaintive voice reveals the unsuspected and ridiculous tragedy of a career.
On the other hand,a programme is a programme.And unless it is treated with deference it ceases to be anything but a poor joke.To treat one's programme with exactly the right amount of deference,to live with not too much and not too little elasticity,is scarcely the simple affair it may appear to the inexperienced.
And still another danger is the danger of developing a policy of rush,of being gradually more and more obsessed by what one has to do next.In this way one may come to exist as in a prison,and ones life may cease to be one's own.One may take the dog out for a walk at eight o'clock,and meditate the whole time on the fact that one must begin to read at a quarter to nine,and that one must not be late.
And the occasional deliberate breaking of one's programme will not help to mend matters.The evil springs not from persisting without elasticity in what one has attempted,but from originally attempting too much,from filling one's programme till it runs over.The only cure is to reconstitute the programme,and to attempt less.