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Today's
quotation:
Enthusiasm is the thing which makes the world go
round. Without
its
driving power, nothing worth doing has ever
been done.
Love, friendship,
religion, altruism, devotion
to
career or hobby— all these, and most
of the other
good
things of life, are forms of enthusiasm.
Robert H. Schauffler
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Today's
Meditation:
I try to
bring enthusiasm to all that I do, but if I could I would
change the ways that people define the word. To look
at me, you probably wouldn't think that I was being
enthusiastic at all, but that's simply because I don't
generally show it much. In our society we tend to
associate enthusiasm with a show of positive emotion, with
people who are outgoing and letting others know that
they're enthusiastic. But you can be enthusiastic in
your own way, and that may not include any of the traits
that others are looking for.
When
I'm enthusiastic I try to do the best that I can at
whatever I'm doing, and I try to enjoy it as much as I
can. If I'm going to work, I try to bring enthusiasm
with me so that I can do my work well. When I meet
other people, I really do like to get to know them, but
since I'm not an outgoing sort of person, I think that
sometimes others feel that I'm somewhat
disinterested. I like the fact that Robert points
out that other things that we value, like friendship, are
"forms of enthusiasm." To me that rings
very true.
If we
don't bring enthusiasm to the lives that we're living, we
risk getting bored, watching everything reduce itself to
tedium. With enthusiasm, though, we can see the
world through eyes that truly want to be seeing what
they're seeing, and that are learning more and more with
each passing hour and day. When I do have to do
something I don't necessarily like (like going to meetings, for
example), I try to bring enthusiasm to the table so that I
and anyone else involved may get more out of it.
Being
enthusiastic or not-- like so many other things-- is a
matter of choice, isn't it? When we do choose to be
enthusiastic, we're giving ourselves a chance to benefit
from whatever it is we're doing-- and we're adding
something positive to the experiences of anyone else
involved.
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