ENJOY YOUR JOB.

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1410, 26 June 1923, Page 7

ENJOY YOUR JOB.

Duty is the idea by which we rob ourselves of the joy of work.' The pleasure of Hie soul is self expression. Self expression is found perfectly in work. Whoever has discovered his works has come ir on the secret of happiness. That is. provided he does not spoil it. all by putting the duty thought upon it and making it a drudgery. Of course one should do his duty and for it is entitled to his reward and praise. It is not that 1 would rob him of his deserts, it is because he is missing the finest element of his deserts. Why not call it privilege, instead of duty? The one work connotes a banquet, the other a whip; one the chosen opportunity of a free man, the other the forced labour of a slave. A soldier goes to war because it is his duty, but the best soldier, the one that gets the inner satisfaction of heroism, is the one who steps forward to volunteer for some enterprise of danger. It’s a wife's duty to take care of her children, to keep the home, and to make her husband happy; but she is not much of a success if a sense of duty is all that moves her if she has not the inspiration of love that makes a woman glad to be a wife and mother. Duty is iron; privilege is golden. The schoolboy who has only the feeling of duty to keep him at his books is not going to get the good out of his opportunities that the boy gets who is working his way, and looks upon the school as an inestimable privilege. Duty, unrelieved, made the hard Puritan. Duty, alone, makes a faithful clerk. But when it is lit up by a sense of opportunity and the clerk transforms his duty by his enthusiasm, the first thing you know he owns a business. Duty is stern; privilege is joyous. The great Teacher called on us to take His yoke upon us; but it was a transforming yoke. “Ye shall find rest,” He added. When we put enthusiasm, vim and interest in anything we have to do. work becomes play, labour becomes craftsmanship, duty smiles and is changed to opportunity. Duty obeys the law. Privilege knows no law, but operates by love, and love is the fulfilling of the law. Duty, taken alone, is dead. The joy of doing comes from the emotions. Whatever we do without feeling, whatever is not the forth putting of soul energy, is second rate. We are artisans, not artists. Duty is cold. And cold contracts. Duty alone makes life wintry and bleak. Pour love into your work. Let the labour of your hands be the gestures of the soul, and you are carried up to the heights of genius by the exhilaration of the outflowing forces. What the nation needs is not merely a sense of patriotic duty, but an overwhelming passion to serve. No nation is safe without enthusiasm. Neither can any man go far without it.