There comes a time in everyone’s life—and I do mean in everyone’s life—when you ask yourself what it is that you’ve been doing with your life. Sometimes you even realize that whatever you’ve been doing all your life, you’ve been doing it wrong. Dead wrong… Son, you want that realization to hit you when you’re 70? Or 50? Or when you’re still young, with your whole life still ahead of you?
You have tremendous gifts to give; God sent them with you when you came to this earth. And while you might forget them, or doubt they exist, God does not forget and He will show them to you. As soon as your gifts are dedicated to His work, they will blossom. Chains that might have held you back for years will dissolve. And you will feel free. You will learn that your spirit is bigger than your circumstances, as soon as you put your spirit first.
The main character, Gene Moore, is shown how much of his identity is wrapped up in his career and potential in that career. When he comes home from war no longer able to see himself as a baseball prospect, he isn't sure who he is. This is thoroughly reinforced every time one of his acquaintances identifies him by baseball or inquires about his status. How much of our identity and worth is wrapped up in our job title or the one we are aspiring to?
They destroy lives with work. What for? They rob men of their lives. What for, I ask? My master—I lost my life in the textile mill of Nefidov—my master presented one prima donna with a golden wash basin. Every one of her toilet articles was gold. That basin holds my life-blood, my very life. That's for what my life went! A man killed me with work in order to comfort his mistress with my blood. He bought her a gold wash basin with my blood.
Our civilisation being what it is, you've got to spent eight hours out of every twenty-four as a mixture between an imbecile and a sewing machine. It's very disagreeable, I know. It's humiliating and disgusting. But there you are. You've got to do it, otherwise the whole fabric of our world will fall to bits and we'll starve. Do the job then, idiotically and mechanically; and spend your leisure hours in being a real complete man or woman.
ការងារមិនដែលធ្វើឲ្យមនុស្សបរាជ័យទេ តែមនុស្សទេដែលធ្វើឲ្យការងារបរាជ័យ។
I've learned one thing, and that's to quit worrying about stupid things. You have four years to be irresponsible here, relax. Work is for people with jobs. You'll never remember class time, but you'll remember the time you wasted hanging out with your friends. So stay out late. Go out with your friends on a Tuesday when you have a paper due on Wednesday. Spend money you don't have. Drink 'til sunrise. The work never ends, but college does...
We must work for the good and commit ourselves to postures of global selflessness, even if we can't figure out all the details surrounding the foreign dictators, food shortages, and fair trade. We're called to lean in, to work as hard as we can toward the good, and then trust in God who says, 'The way I work surpasses the way you work, and the way I think is beyond the way you think.' We're called to be witnesses of how God is at play in the world.
I must go on living. And, though itmay be childish of me, I can't go on insimple compliance. From now on I muststruggle with the world. I thought thatMother might well be the last of thosewho can end their lives beautifully andsadly, struggling with no one, neitherhating nor betraying anyone. In theworld to come there will be no room forsuch people. The dying are beautiful,but to live, to survive – those thingssomehow seem hideous andcontaminated with blood.
Maybe I’ll never be able to figure out what I’m passionate about. But when I choose something, it has to be something that when I wake up it’s the first thing I think about, and it’s also the last thing I think about before I go to sleep. I read about other people and how much they love their jobs—like, how they just want to do it all the time and it doesn’t feel like work because they love it so much. I want that to happen to me.
...treasure what it means to do a day's work. It's our one and only chance to do something productive today, and it's certainly not available to someone merely because he is the high bidder. A day's work is your chance to do art, to create a gift, to do something that matters. As your work gets better and your art becomes more important, competition for your gifts will increase and you'll discover that you can be choosier about whom you give them to.
Ian pretended that not knowing what to do was the hard part when, somewhere inside, I think he knew that making a choice about something is when the real uncertainty begins. The more terrifying uncertainty is wanting something and not knowing how to get it. It is working toward something even though there is no sure thing. When we make choices, we open ourselves up to hard work and failure and heartbreak, so sometimes it feels easier not to know, not to choose, and not to do.
Divine worship means the same thing where time is concerned, as the temple where space is concerned. "Temple" means... that a particular piece of ground is specially reserved, and marked off from the remainder of the land which is used either for agriculture or habitation... Similarly in divine worship a certain definite space of time is set aside from working hours and days... and like the space allotted to the temple, is not used, is withdrawn from all merely utilitarian ends.
Meeks was telling him about the value of work. He said that it had been his personal experience that if you wanted to get ahead, you had to work. He said this was the law of life and it was no way to get around it because it was inscribed on the human heart like love thy neighbour. He said these two laws were the team that worked together to make the world go round and that any individual who wanted to be a success and win the pursuit of happiness, that was all he needed to know.
Lots of stores have self-checkout lanes now. That’s clever. They get us to buy their goods—and do their work too. Instead of paying cashiers to check us out, it’s like they’ve enticed us to pay them for the privilege of a rewarding work experience at the end of our shopping excursion. Now, using this principle, how can I sell my love to someone, and be able to not only keep it, but get more in return from the very person who bought my love in the first place?
