If you seek for small things, small things will be your reward. If you seek for temporary experiences and excitement, you will have temporary relationships. If you seek momentary experiences, you will have momentary involvements. Do not be surprised if this does not satisfy your deeper nature and inclination… Are you destined to serve this world? Read more about service in the world.
“It is fundamental for you to understand that you have come to the world to work. This is not the world where you go to have a holiday. This is not the world where you go to take a great vacation or to have an immense amount of rest. You have come from a place of rest, but the world is a place of work and action. And you have come here to work and to take action.” — Living the Way of Knowledge
“The world is a place of doing. Your Ancient Home is a place of being. The world is a place of doing because it is a place of work.” — Relationships and Higher Purpose
“If you are going to build a tall mast, you need a deep keel. The work goes on both above and below the surface.” — Marshall Vian Summers
“You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it come true. You may have to work for it, however.” — Richard David Bach
“Your duties in the world are small. They are meant to secure provisions which you need physically and to maintain those alliances with others that are beneficial for your well-being and for their well-being as well. These are important, but your mission is greater. Do not undermine your ability to receive your mission by being in failure concerning your duties. This is only a form of self-avoidance.” — Steps to Knowledge
“Real learning is a step-by-step process. It does not happen all at once. Only those who are lazy, indolent and weak think they are gaining a great understanding in the moment. That is never the case.” — The Great Waves of Change
“I don’t wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work.” — Pearl S. Buck
“The ability to work, the desire to work, the ability to maintain work and to apply yourself in work, while preserving part of your life, attention and energy for greater endeavors and studies, represents a mature and successful approach in building this Pillar of your foundation.” — Living the Way of Knowledge
“There is both inner and outer work to do. One cannot be neglected for the other. This is the great balance.” — Marshall Vian Summers
“Your work … becomes increasingly more an expression of the emergence of Knowledge within you … when your spiritual calling begins to emerge.” — Relationships and Higher Purpose
“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” — Confucius
“Your work is your purpose. It is who you are and what you do in the world. It is not your ultimate reality, but it is your purpose for coming here. All forms of work, most of which will be very mundane, all serve this. You build a foundation of work. You do not want to retire from work; you want to expand your work and rededicate your work. This keeps you vital; this keeps providing meaning. Do not believe that escape from work will lead to any kind of satisfaction. Though you may be tired of your current employment, think of expanding your work into new areas. Think, “Where could I be helpful to others, given what I know?”— Wisdom from the Greater Community Vol II
“In the end, God will win everyone back, even the most wicked. They will just have to work longer to redeem themselves. They will have to give more to counteract their harmful impacts upon others. Here kings will have to be water carriers and till the fields. Here tyrants will have to sweep the streets.” — The New God
“Work is not simply what you do to get by to earn enough money to meet whatever needs you define to be necessary and important for yourself. Work is what you are here to do. It includes great activities, but it is largely made up of small activities—mundane things that have to be done every day, simple tasks that once fulfilled give you the opportunity to do greater things in service to humanity.” — Wisdom from the Greater Community
“Someone who is great can do small things without complaint. Someone who is with Knowledge can undertake mundane activities without any sense of disgrace. Activities are only activities. They do not constitute your true nature or Being. Your true nature or Being is the Source of your life, which will express itself through your small activities as you learn to receive it and to see it in proper perspective.” — Steps to Knowledge
“Hide not your talents, they for use were made, What’s a sundial in the shade?” — Benjamin Franklin
“A leisure society is a society that is dying. And, indeed, much of the decadence that you see in your culture here is directly attributable to the emphasis on leisure and pleasure. Leisure and pleasure are natural benefits of a life that is meaningful and filled with work. Work hard and you will enjoy your leisure. If you do not work hard, your leisure will seem like a weight upon you, something that you do not want to lose but which gives you little or no value within itself.” — Wisdom from the Greater Community Vol II
“This is the real secret of life — to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.” — Alan Watts
“It may take you a long time to find your real work and a much longer time for it to support you financially. In the interim, you do work that supports your real work. This is perfectly all right. In fact, it has to be this way. If you live in poverty because you have refused to do any work other than what you think is your real work, you will not have the power, the stability or the foundation to do your real work, even if it becomes known to you.” — Steps to Knowledge: Continuation Training
“Every activity that is meaningful is a form of work. Developing stillness is work. Here effort is extended to produce a state of mind where there is no effort, yet it is work nonetheless.” — Wisdom from the Greater Community Vol II
“Your purpose in life is to find your purpose and give your whole heart and soul to it” — Gautama Buddha
“People often think of self-love and self-acceptance as a form of passivity where you don’t have to work any more. You can go on vacation or holiday with yourself. But real self-acceptance is very different from this. Here you realize that your lack of self-respect and your propensity for error require correction and are opportunities to express that which is genuine and meaningful within yourself.” — Relationships and Higher Purpose
“Commit yourself to work because everything that is important will be realized through the process of work and the results of work. The focus of your work, the understanding of your work, the application of your work and the engagement of your work—these are the things that are significant for you. You leave a little time for pleasure and time off for rest and introspection.” — Wisdom from the Greater Community Vol II
“In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In governing, don’t try to control. In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present.” — Lao Tzu
“Your employment is a perfect environment to teach you discernment, discretion, insight, compassion, ability and restraint. Use this, then, as part of your laboratory for study. Do not demand that your work environment reflect the greater values that you yourself are learning to experience, for in most cases, your work environment will not be able to reflect or demonstrate a greater truth. However, you can demonstrate a greater truth by being there, not by proclaiming yourself or your ideas, but through your own demonstration.” — Living the Way of Knowledge
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It is wonderful to have that moment of accomplishment when you say to yourself, “I set out to do this thing and I did it!” But how long does that moment last? And what does it bring with it? Is it not followed by the anxiety of how that acquisition or accomplishment will be protected or expanded? Does it not bring an emptiness that makes you feel that you must establish a new goal, a new place to reach, something new to strive for? Your success here is very brief and is quickly replaced by new questions and new anxieties… Read more about ambition.