Thinking Out Loud

Do Everything You Do as if it is a Great & Noble Pursuit

In her work, Optimism, Helen Keller writes, “I long to accomplish a great and noble task; but it is my chief duty and joy to accomplish humble tasks, as though they were great and noble. It is my service to think how I can best fulfill the demands that each day makes upon me, and to rejoice that others can do what I cannot.  . . . I love the good that others do; for their activity is an assurance that whether I can help or not, the true and good will stand sure. P. 15

\NOTE: There will only be a few of us in any generation who will win a Nobel Prize. Yet, those who win a Nobel Prize stand on the shoulders of the billions of people who work every day and perform tasks that will never receive any notoriety. Keller speaks of each of these unknown tasks as great and noble; Mother Teresa said it a bit differently, “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” Helen Keller and Mother Teresa give us words to live by, whatever we are doing, do it as if were, at the moment, the most important thing to do.