Bringing meaning to life ...

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about work, labor, toil, employment, job … whatever name you might use to describe what you are do in life for money.  As I move forward on my new novel, the concept comes to the forefront because I am dealing with slavery in America.  I pause now to reflect on the heart of The Olympian: A Tale of Ancient Hellas.  The worth of a man is not based on what he does for himself – was my premise – rather by what he does for others.  That exact sentiment is contained in this quote by clergyman and social reformer Henry Ward Beecher,

 “Greatness lies not on being strong, but in the right using of strength; and strength is not used rightyly when it serves only to carry a man above his felloss for his own solitary glory.  He is the greatest whose strength carries up the most harts by the attraction of his own.”

 And by John Ruskin, a poet, writer and social thinker in the 19^th century.

 “The highest reward for man’s toil is not what he gets for it, but what he becomes by it.”

 Work hard at whatever you do to lift the hearts of your fellows and inspire them by your own diligence.