Wendell Berry: The Real Work

You are ready to start the day. Maybe you’re excited, apprehensive, or simply indifferent. Whatever state you are in, it can’t be avoided: at daybreak, you begin again.

With polished shoes and freshly pressed clothes you take out your bag and go out to face the world.

What’s in store, you don’t know yet. I hope that before heading out, just when the morning was quiet, you were able to close your eyes and channel all your energy towards visualizing how your week is going to be like and how you’re going to manage your reactions side-by-side the little and big surprises, pleasant or otherwise.

Whatever life throws at you, jeers or cheers, just keep going and throw something back. Allow yourself a time to mope but stand up, come back strong.

Find delight in difficulty because if you had been walking far too long in the meadows with knees unscratched maybe you haven’t lived enough. So to you, go out there and do some living!

The Real Work
Wendell Berry

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

Full text of the poem lifted from Writer’s Almanac