Let me cultivate diligence

To live is to work and work hard. Man was born to work actively and strenuously by the sweat of his diligent work. He lives at his best when he has some work to accomplish, something great and good to aim at, some ideal to realize, something to strive for, some cause to serve or some mission to fight for. Work and activity prevent bodily and mental powers from sinking into inertia. Life awakens needs and the struggle to supply and satisfy them gives zest to life.

Happiness comes to those who willingly and enthusiastically lead active and industrious life of hard work. Want and destitution flee from the house wherein live men and women who earnestly and industriously labor for their living. Active and hard industry is fruitful of rich rewards. Prosperity treads on the heels of sustained labor.

Providence has buried deep in the bowels of the earth untold treasures. Men dig hard and move heaven and earth to get them out. Insensible to cold and hunger and fatigue, they explore the earth to produce order out of chaos. They, go where no man's foot has ever trod, and span and scale the highest heights of heaven. Such adventurous and enterprising men enrich humanity and advance civilization. The patient efforts and painful gropings to unravel the secrets of nature develop the capacities of the mind. More invigorating and exhilarating is the strenuous endeavor to gain an object than its achievement.

Let me not sleep away my time like a sluggard. Let me not saunter and lounge as listlessly as a straying beast. Let me not neglect my opportunity, nor waste my time. Let me hasten to my duty. Let me not dream and pray for the prize I covet. Let me be up and strive with all my might and all my energy to win it and win it I shall. Let me not be a passive fatalist or a visionary. Let me not cry for the moon and hanker after what is humanly impossible. Let me not be content by taking what comes my way by itself. Let me create opportunities and let me have ambition to spur me to work hard and make my way against all odds to a higher position in life than I hold. Let me not helplessly drift upon the tumultuous billows of the sea of life. Let me fight the stormy wind and the waves and steer my ship of life safe to anchorage. Let me fight obstacles with the body, physically pitting myself against hardships, bracing myself against difficulties. The fight for doing great things serves as a tonic to my spirit. Let me be the fighter knowing no respite. Let me be strong in spirit, even when I be weak in body.

Save me from self-indulgence that weakens and ruins hardy habits. I will not brand manual labor with the stigma of inferiority. I will weed the soil, plough the furrows and sow the seeds, if circumstances so demand. Diligence makes my task easy. Let me plan out my designs carefully and execute them with vigor. Let me keep doing. Let me bestir myself to honest and intelligent industry. Let me persevere with constancy and grapple with difficulties in my undertakings. Give me unbounded capacities to take pains. Let me work hardest, to the best of my ability and power and in the quickest manner possible. Let me give my whole life to my work. Undaunted by failure, let me go on with my work. Work becomes a fatigue when done unwillingly. Let me work diligently and cheerfully. Let me look to my work with pleasure.

When inertia grips me, wake me from it. Help me to shake off my labor. Let me act with alacrity and with resolute will. Help me to unfold and develop my latent faculties. Give me an idea in my mind and a will to back it. Give me an ideal that raises before me an imagery higher and loftier than my mind holds. Let me live up to the ideal. Let the fire of idealism burning in my heart be ablaze and find vent in the life of romance and adventure and enterprise. Let me be busy from dawn to dusk and let me work all my life, while yet I may, Ahura Mazda.

This page was last updated on Tuesday, August 01, 2000.