From “On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity, and Getting Old” by Parker J. Palmer
Take on big jobs worth doing, jobs like the spread of love, peace, and justice. That means refusing to be seduced by our cultural obsession with being effective as measured by short-term results. We all want our work to make a difference. But if we take on the big jobs and our only measure of success is the next quarter’s bottom line, we’ll end up disappointed, dropping out, and in despair.
Think of someone you respect because he or she lived a life devoted to high values: a Rosa Parks, a Nelson Mandela, or someone known only to a few. When that person died, was he or she able to say, “I’m sure glad I took on that job because now everyone can check it off their to-do list’? No, our heroes take on impossible jobs and stay with them for the long haul because they live by a standard that supersedes effectiveness.
The name of that standard is “faithfulness” – faithfulness to your gifts, to the needs of the world, and to offering your gifts to whatever needs of the world, and to offering your gifts to whatever needs are within your reach.