~ by Jesse McCaughey ~
There’s a song from my college days by Ben Harper that I really liked. It talked about doing your best. The first two verses went like this:
If you’re gonna live, live it up, and if you’re gonna give, then give it up.
If you’re gonna walk the earth, then walk it proud,
And if you’re gonna say the word, you’ve got to say it loud.
If you’re gonna build a house, make it a home
If you’re gonna pull some weight, then pull your own.
If you’re gonna help, man, just reach out your hand,
And if you’re getting up, then take a stand.
The moral of the song is that you don’t want to do things halfway; you’ve got to go all the way and put everything you have into it. If you’re going to spend the time doing even what may be considered a menial job, you might as well do a good job.
It’s the small stuff that matters. It’s easy to want to do things well that you’re interested in, but like the song says, your life is everything that you do, and it pays to try your best with everything.
I thought about why it’s important to try your best even at things like cleaning your room, and the answer I came up with was that when you try to do your best, you have the best possibility of a positive result, and the great thing about positive results is that they make you feel good.
Beyond that, they’re kind of reminders, large and small, that your true Self is limitless, and can accomplish great things. The real you, that cruises around in your body and gets to live and touch and smell things, has eternal wisdom, and the power to manifest heaven on earth.
God is in you and everywhere. I like to focus on that, and besides being everywhere, everyone can find their own prayer within themselves each day, and live according to that.