Setting one's course on a star
Robert Greenleaf was known for having kept a journal. At one point in his life he used Jungian dream analysis as part of his quest. Earlier in his life his mostly unpublished journal entries provided the groundwork for his later work. Here is one of those entries:
Spend all you have for loveliness. Buy it and never count the cost....Count many a year of strife well lost, and for a breath of ecstasy give all you have been or could be.
The rewards of living a full life may be measured in joyous moments rather than in days or years. These are the treasures that return to the mind in the quiet hours of the declining years. The moments nobly lived, challenges met, the truth spoken, the slur turned aside, the tummult quelled, the helping hand extended, and the simple expression of gratitude, the burden borne; meeting life and feeling the response of living - taking responsibility, prudently, if possible, but taking it and leaving it joyfully once taken. Setting one's course on a star and steering towards it, minding not the reefs that waylay. August 31, 1941
This was written almost 30 years before his first published essay, The Servant as Leader, came to fruition. But you can see, I think, how his early private writings were guiding him towards what came later in his public writings.
Some random questions: What are the joyous moments in your life? What are the treasures that will return to your mind as you grow older? Have you set your course on a star? Are you currently steering towards it or have the reefs gotten in the way?
Spend all you have for loveliness. Buy it and never count the cost....Count many a year of strife well lost, and for a breath of ecstasy give all you have been or could be.
The rewards of living a full life may be measured in joyous moments rather than in days or years. These are the treasures that return to the mind in the quiet hours of the declining years. The moments nobly lived, challenges met, the truth spoken, the slur turned aside, the tummult quelled, the helping hand extended, and the simple expression of gratitude, the burden borne; meeting life and feeling the response of living - taking responsibility, prudently, if possible, but taking it and leaving it joyfully once taken. Setting one's course on a star and steering towards it, minding not the reefs that waylay. August 31, 1941
This was written almost 30 years before his first published essay, The Servant as Leader, came to fruition. But you can see, I think, how his early private writings were guiding him towards what came later in his public writings.
Some random questions: What are the joyous moments in your life? What are the treasures that will return to your mind as you grow older? Have you set your course on a star? Are you currently steering towards it or have the reefs gotten in the way?
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