“If a man is called to be a street sweeper,he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted,or Beethoven played music,or Shakespeare wrote poetry.He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.” Martin Luther King Jr.
Every day, in every aspect of our lives, we have the option of doing our best work or something less. At those moments, there may be numerous excuses swimming around in our head that tell us not to give it our all. But there’s still a compelling reason why we should do our very best that overrides them all.
Because we can!
How do you feel about your life today? Are you living every day in exuberance? Do you love what you’re doing? Are you excited every single moment? Are you looking forward to what’s coming up next? Are you living your best life? If your answer to any of the above is a no, maybe or not sure, that means you’re not living your life to the fullest. Which really shouldn’t be the case, because your life experience is up to you to create. Why settle for anything less than what you can get? You deserve nothing but the best. When you live every day to the fullest it is filled with joy, passion and rigor.
Excellence is not a skill. It is an attitude.Excellence comes not from education, money, ability or connections alone. It comes from a commitment to do the very best with whatever you have available. Excellence as an attitude promotes positive behaviours, a grace-filled acceptance of effort and the patient pursuit of goals—for yourself and others. Seeking excellence is about doing your best and letting the results go. You will know from your level of energy, joy and contentment - when they are high, you are doing your best.
As you live in alignment with your best self, you’ll find yourself becoming more conscious, more alive, and more importantly, experiencing life on a whole new level. Your attitude changes. You begin to appreciate everything around you. Even things that we take for granted - like education, teachers. Those teachers that care for our growth and pour their heart and soul into their lessons. They are doing their best. They are shining!!
God’s gift to you is this life, Your gift to God is living it to it’s fullest potential. Most importantly be yourself! In fact does it not become our duty to shine?
Attitude is everything - Bauji was very adamant about attitude. He not only expected cleanliness, simplicity and tidiness but urged everyone to put their best effort at any job (seva) that they were assigned to do no matter how menial it was. In addition he expected you to be cautious about wasting materials unnecessarily. He himself lived by these principles.
If we were to examine the life of any successful or shall we say ‘shining’ person it would be easy to decipher how much their attitude had to do with their success. Doing one’s very best does not only mean hard work but being committed, being persistent, being reflective of one’s self, being flexible and being open to change and even being okay with failures at times. In other words doing your best, being your best no matter what hurdles come up before you, learning to hear the still small voice within you which urges you on. Doing your best, then letting go. It is not YOU doing it, but He who gives you every breathe that you are taking. As Joel Goldsmith puts it, “I by myself can do nothing Lord, Thy Grace is my sufficiency”
Steve Jobs says very succinctly . “Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living the result of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinion drown your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition; they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
Gurbani (GGS 857, 965) guides us to serve Him but to know that all that you do is already His and to keep in mind that He is doing it not YOU.
So it is our Divine duty to do our best; to SHINE and show OUR TRUE COLORS !
With much love
RA