Around the Year with Emmet Fox - 25 September 2010
12-Step Recovered Alkie
Thread Starter
Join Date: May 2010
Location: West Bloomfield, MI
Posts: 5,797
Around the Year with Emmet Fox - 25 September 2010
ONE THING AT A TIME
The present moment is never intolerable. It is always what is coming in five minutes or five days that makes people despair. The Law of Life is to live in the present, and this applies to both time and place. Keep your attention to the present moment, and in the place where your body is now. Do a fair day's work, and then stop. Overwork is not productive in the long run.
A friend of mine was visiting a great cathedral in Italy. Just inside the door was a magnificent mosaic extending the width of the building, but not yet completed. It represented the Last Judgment and the number of tiny pieces of different colored marble involved in it staggers the imagination. A man was on his knees working away and my friend, who spoke Italian, whispered to him, "What a stupendous task you have! I could not even dream of undertaking so much work."
The man replied quietly, "Oh, I know about how much I can do comfortably in one day. So each morning I mark out a certain area, and I don't other my head thinking outside of that space. Before I know where I am the job will be complete."
Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself... (Matthew 6:34)
The present moment is never intolerable. It is always what is coming in five minutes or five days that makes people despair. The Law of Life is to live in the present, and this applies to both time and place. Keep your attention to the present moment, and in the place where your body is now. Do a fair day's work, and then stop. Overwork is not productive in the long run.
A friend of mine was visiting a great cathedral in Italy. Just inside the door was a magnificent mosaic extending the width of the building, but not yet completed. It represented the Last Judgment and the number of tiny pieces of different colored marble involved in it staggers the imagination. A man was on his knees working away and my friend, who spoke Italian, whispered to him, "What a stupendous task you have! I could not even dream of undertaking so much work."
The man replied quietly, "Oh, I know about how much I can do comfortably in one day. So each morning I mark out a certain area, and I don't other my head thinking outside of that space. Before I know where I am the job will be complete."
Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself... (Matthew 6:34)
A work in progress
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: South Jersey
Posts: 16,633
This is a good one for me to remember. Procrastination being one of my more bothersome character defects, I have a tendency to think I will "make up for" what I didn't do, later. I wind up bringing personal bills with me to pay while I'm at work, and I wind up bringing work home, to do there. If I worked at what was in front of me, to the best of my ability, and then STOPPED until tomorrow, my life would feel a lot less unmanageable. Same amount of work, less angst. A lot more productive.
Currently Active Users Viewing this Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
