Saturday, February 14, 2009

Daily meditation, Feb. 14th: James Allen

To neglect small tasks, or to execute them in a perfunctory manner, is a mark of weakness and folly.

FEBRUARY FOURTEENTH.

THE great man knows the vast value that inheres in moments, words, greetings, meals, apparel, correspondence, rest, work, detached efforts, fleeting obligations, in the thousand-and-one little things which press upon him for attention—briefly, in the common details of life. He sees everything as divinely apportioned, needing only the application of dispassionate thought and action on his part to render life blessed and perfect. He neglects nothing, does not hurry, seeks to escape nothing but error and folly; attends to every duty as it is presented to him, and does not postpone and regret. By giving himself unreservedly to his nearest duty, he attains to that combined childlike simplicity and unconscious power which is greatness.

There is no way to strength and wisdom but by acting strongly and wisely in the present moment.