Chapter 12 - Duty and Love

Though you work your fingers to the bone and have not love for your work it profits you next to nothing and your employer less than it ought to.

Duty work robs the doer of the joy of doing, which is the chief compensation for all work.

You imagine you do your work well from a sense of duty. You would do it better still if you loved it. If you loved it you would enjoy every bit of it, and you would glory in every little improvement you hit upon; and you would hit upon a lot because your soul would be playing through your fingers.

The soul of the duty doer is shut away from his work -- he works with his fingers and his habit mind only. By the end of the week he is fagged out and his poor soul droops for lack of exercise; then perhaps he takes it to church for relief; and shuts it carefully away again before Monday morning.

And the worst of it is that so many people make a virtue of keeping their souls locked up six days out of seven. They parade duty as their mainspring. And even when they do happen to let a little soul, a little love and joy into their work they won’t acknowledge it. They stick to it that it is “duty” which impels them.

When the soul does manage to get out of its shell and express itself in useful work the brain denies it the glory and happiness which belong to it. The worker resolutely shuts off the joy vibrations with that stem word “duty.” He robs himself of the pleasure of his honest effort.

There are two ways of robbing one’s self of the joy of work. One is by paralyzing joy with “duty”; the other is by scattering the mind and soul all over creation whilst the hands are doing something. In the former case the soul is shut away in idleness; in the latter it is wasted in riotous thinking.

The soul’s power is emotion, that which flows from the silence within. The nature of emotion is motion. To let emotion move through the body, out into intelligent effort, is joy and eternally welling life and strength and wisdom.

To let the mind wander while the hands work is to fritter your soul force away at the top of the head -- the power which should move from the head down through the body and out into intelligent doing, is simply dissipated into thin air.

The wandering mind robs the body of vitality and joy. It is the prodigal who wastes all your substance.

The duty doer is a niggard. He lets some of his soul into his work, shutting the rest tight within. He puts his thought into his work, but he is stingy with his soul, his love. He works coldly, stolidly, conscientiously, reminding himself constantly that he is to “be good for nothing,” as the wise mamma commanded the little boy who wanted a prize for being good.

Now everybody knows that cold contracts things. The cold duty doer shuts off his soul warmth and his body grows gaunt and pinched, his brain cells stiff, his thoughts angular. He shuts off the inspiration of love and joy and works like a machine, grinding out the same old things by the same old pattern.

The duty doer converts a real living, growing, loving being into a mere cold machine. It’s a shame. And the whole cause is the old fathers’ tradition that duty is greater than love. I wonder where they got that notion?

The same spirit led them that leads us. That same spirit must have led them and us into duty doing.

Why? To gain self-control that we might have the greater joy. That is it! First there is the “natural,” the animal way of doing things; just to follow impulse and gratify self at no matter what expense to others. But somehow you are not very happy after you have done it.

Then there is the mental way of doing things, the “duty” way; when we cut off all the old “natural” impulses and teach ourselves to work stolidly, steadily in the “right” line. It takes about all our thought and effort to control ourselves in this mental way; it requires a firm unrelenting hand upon our impulses. But we were not happy when we didn’t control our impulses, and we are at least at peace when we do. So we keep on crushing back the “natural” impulses and sticking sternly to duty.

When we followed the old animal impulses to have things our way right or wrong, without regard to the other fellow, we were always lured on by the hope of joy; and when we got the thing desired, as we sometimes did, it was only to be disappointed. So we were full of unrest. Since we have chosen the ways of duty there are no joys to lure us, but rest accompanies us.

In the old way we were always sure we were going to be happy; in the duty way we have ceased to expect happiness but we really have peace. And a peace in the heart, we have learned from sad experience, is worth two joys in the bush. We have been oft bitten and thus learned caution: so we keep on schooling ourselves to keep the peace and shut eyes and ears to promises of pleasure.

We have learned to follow “conscience” instead of “natural impulse.” Conscience is merely spiritual caution. The faculty called caution warns us from outward danger; it was created by many ages of race experience in getting its fingers burned and its shins kicked and its head broken Conscience warns us from inner dangers; and is being created by many ages of human experience at stealing from the other fellow only to find its own heart robbed of peace and happiness.

We tasted impulse and found it sweet at first and bitter, bitter at the last. Then we tasted duty and found its first pungency melt away to a clean sweetness such as we had never tasted before; a sweetness so pure and satisfying that it is no wonder we keep clinging to the duty doing which brought it.

When we lived from unchecked and unguided impulse only we were many times happy on the surface, when we happened to get the things asked for, but we were always restless and dissatisfied within. This unrest is the voice of the universal spirit within, which is ever urging us to take our dominion over self and to direct our energies to higher and yet higher uses; it is the voice of life, which ever demands a high purpose for being and doing.

The spirit of the world which is moving us allows each a few years and many intervals of irresponsible living. We have our childhood when the whole world smiles and flies to gratify every impulse; and when we are good children we have our little vacations and play happily with that sweet taste in our hearts. If we try to take too many play times the spirit in us is frowning and restless again, ever urging us to be up and doing that which will help the world spirit express the beauties it has in mind for us.

When we quit chasing pleasure and begin to live and do after the plan set in our hearts the world spirit whispers “Well done,” to us. We find peace. We taste and see that it is good. Henceforth we work for the inner peace, not for the fleeting gratification of the outer senses.

As we follow duty peace deepens and widens. By and by we form the habit of duty and it grows easier and easier. We do what seems best because we have learned that to do otherwise ruffles our peace; and we have learned to love that peace beyond anything else life can hold for us.

Peace keeps on deepening and widening and growing more dynamic. At first it is a solemn calm, and a little deviation from duty ruffles and dissipates it. But by and by as we keep on doing our duty, through this solemn calm, growing ever deeper and broader, there wells the full diapason of a deep joy -- very softly at first, with many diminuendos and silences; at unexpected moments it swells again; over little things the tide of life has brought us -- things we loved, and thought we had given up forever when we chose duty as our guide.

Fitfully at first the deep joy wells, fitfully and gently, but, oh, so full and sweet and satisfying; such tones as our souls never heard before. We wonder at the deep joy; and, oh, we begin to see that the world spirit was urging us on to duty only that we might find deeper joy than the old irresponsible life could yield us. By taking dominion over self, by using our energies for higher purposes, we have deepened our capacity for joy. Now the harmony of deep joy begins to swell, and every touch of life but adds to the paeans of praise.

And the good things of life begin to come -- houses, lands, fathers, mothers, brothers, a hundredfold more than ever before, bringing joy such as we never knew before. Oh, we thought we had given up the pleasures of life for its duties, and behold we find the pleasures added.

We used to be fascinated and tossed about by life's pleasures; now we find them fascinated and obedient to us -- oh, the power and glory and joy of it!

We gained dominion over ourselves and our environment through doing our duty. We gave up the shortsighted impulse “will” to follow the omniscient will which is working through us, and behold the things we once desired vainly are now ours to command and enjoy. No wonder we laud duty!

But duty is a schoolmaster whose work we do not need forever. When we have made its wisdom our own, we outgrow duty. Duty flowers in love.

The more resolution and persistence we put into duty doing the sooner we shall outgrow it.

The more pleasure we can get out of duty doing the faster we shall outgrow it. When the worker puts his soul into his duty, duty is swallowed up in love, and joy grows. Many a duty worker cheats himself out of the joy which is his, and stunts the growth of his joy and himself, simply by denying that he works from anything but a sense of duty. As long as our best efforts are called duty they answer to the call as cold, hard duty. As soon as those same activities are called pleasures, our soul joy and love, are turned into them and they are transfigured.

The worker who calls his work duty shuts his soul back from his body and his work. The soul of you is love, and love has no affinity for duty; so as long as you insist upon working from a sense of duty you shut in, shut away from your work, the sense of love. You thus rob yourself of the joy of doing.

And this means that you rob yourself of the greater share of your power and wisdom for doing.

Love is the essence of all wisdom, imagination and inspiration, as well as power. To hold sternly to duty is to shut out love, and with it the wisdom, inspiration and imagination necessary to improve your work. You are robbed of the joy of doing, and your work is robbed of its highest beauty and usefulness.

Quit calling your duties by that name. Jolly yourself into doing your duty for love of it. Don’t you know how you can jolly a child into doing things? Haven’t you been jollied yourself until at last you laughed and forgave and did the thing you had sternly resolved not to do? Haven’t you seen scores of your friends jollied into doing things? Of course. All nature responds to a smiling good-willed jolly.

And your soul, your love, will respond to the same good-willed jollying. It will come out and smile on your doings, and radiate soul-shine and joy and power and inspiration through you, and down through your fingers into your work, and out into your aura, and on out to all the world.

Smile and come up higher than the duty class -- the JOY class awaits you!