Living the Dream

We now settled into a routine which has ever since served in my mind as an archetype, for if I could please myself I would always life as I lived there. I would choose always to breakfast at exactly eight and to be at my desk by nine, there to read or write till one. If a cup of good tea of coffee could be brought me about eleven, so much the better. At one precisely lunch should be on the table; and by two at the latest I would be on the road. Not, except at rare intervals, with a friend. Walking and talking are two very great pleasures, but it is a mistake to combine them. Our own noise blots out the sounds and silences of the outdoor world. Our own noise blots out the sounds and silences of the outdoor world; and talking leads almost inevitably to smoking, and then farewell to nature as far as one [three?] of our senses is concerned. The only friend to walk with is one who so exactly shares your taste for each mood of the countryside that a glance, a halt, or at most a nudge, is enough to assure us that the pleasure is shared. The return from the walk, and the arrival of tea, should be exactly coincident, and not later than a quarter past four. Tea should be taken in solitude, for eating and reading are two pleasures that combine admirably. Or course not all books are suitable for mealtime reading. It would be a kind of blasphemy to read poetry at table. At five a man should be at work again, and at it till seven. Then, at the evening meal and after, comes the time for talk, and unless you are making a night of it with your cronies (and I had none) there is no reason why you should ever be in bed later than eleven. But when is a man to write his letters? You forget that I am describing the ideal life I would live now if I could. And it is an essential of the happy life that a man would have almost no mail and never dread the postman’s knock. Such is my ideal of "settled, calm, Epicurean life." It is no doubt for my own good that I have been so generally prevented from leading it, for it is a life almost entirely selfish. Selfish, not self-centered.

—C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy, Chapter 9.