If we could be known for only one thing, few of us would want to be known for intellectual ability. But each of us has a mind, and truly, a mind is a terrible thing to waste. Rather than waste it, we ought to expand it gratefully. “A good mind possesses a kingdom” (Seneca).
Truth tends to outlast falsehood, and rightdoing tends to outlast wrongdoing. The victories of evil in this world may be shocking and justice may be long delayed, but facts are stubborn and truth is resilient. Eventually, good has the last say.
It’s a wonderful experience when we feel inspired to do our best work. There is no shortage of things that can inspire us, and we should open our hearts up to them. We shouldn’t wait for inspiration to find us; we should go out and track it down.
The best way to make a difference is not to aspire to great deeds that will make the evening news but simply to “perform” — that is, do our duties faithfully, however simple or unimportant they may seem to be at the time.
What can make us fervent about things in life? Well, many forces can move a person to be fervent, but none does it better than love. When we come to love a thing that is worthy of being loved, it is no trouble at all to be fervent about it.
We need to work on building mutual esteem with those around us, and more importantly, having built it, we need to maintain it. Esteem is fragile and needs our protection. It is far too precious to be destroyed by “a moment’s reckless folly.”
Our trustworthiness in social matters is tied to our trustworthiness in spiritual matters. If, in a pinch, we would set aside our commitments to God, wouldn’t it be foolish for other people to expect us to keep our promises to them?
The meaning of life is to spend and be spent, and the hoarding instinct is evil. We hold things in reserve not merely to save them, but so we can spend them later on things more valuable than the things we probably would have spent them on earlier.
We need to commit ourselves to our purposes in such a way that our commitment shows up in action. Having planned our work, we need to work our plan. And our action needs to be not sporadic but continuous — over the long haul.
Not caring is a horrible sin. I don’t believe George Bernard Shaw was overstating the case when he said, “The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that’s the essence of inhumanity.”
