Daily Meditation: Thursday, December 9, 2004

Painful tasks - consider them as a means of progress

12/09/2004

Whatever your circumstances, always remember to analyze yourself so that you know what you are doing, and especially how you are doing it. For example, every day you are obliged to do certain tasks that are more or less interesting or pleasant. But, pleasant and interesting or not, they have to be done. So, observe carefully how you set about doing a job you do not like very much: you sigh, you grumble, and you go at it without conviction or love. You do not realize that your attitude makes the work even more difficult; and then, not only do the efforts you are required to make bring you nothing inwardly, but they destroy you. Whereas if you learn to consider things in another way, if you decide you are going to use this boring work as a chance to train yourself and to make progress, you will change your state of consciousness and the task will seem less hard.