The Task

“ Can you not see that the task is your task—yours to dream, yours to resolve, yours to execute? ”

“ Thought may well be ever ranging,
And opinion ever changing,
Task-work be, though ill begun,
Dealt with by experience better;
By the law and by the letter
Duty done is duty done:
Do it, Time is on the wing! ”

“ Many flit to and fro in vain quest of happiness; he lives at home engaged in simple occupations. And here we come to one of the chief excellences of the volume, that which was lacking in the first volume, and which now had the chief part in winning popularity. "The Task" is all about himself. ”

“ Woe to him, if he think to put upon another age and race the tasks which his Task-Master will require of him,—which, with his many gifts, with his chief gifts, with his ten talents, will surely be required of him. ”

“ IN interpreting, evaluating and weighing the obligations which the philosophers call καθήκοντα, or “duties,” the question is often asked, when some task has been assigned to you and exactly what was to be done has been defined, whether you ought to do anything contrary to instructions, if by so doing it might seem that the outcome would be more successful and more advantageous to the one who imposed the task upon you. It is a difficult question which has been answered both ways by wise men. ”

“ Ours is the duty to fix our gaze with undeviating attention on the duties and responsibilities confronting us at this present hour, to concentrate our resources, both material and spiritual, on the tasks that lie immediately ahead, to insure that no time is wasted, that no opportunity is missed, that no obligation is evaded, that no task is half-heartedly performed, that no decision is procrastinated. ”

“ Part of the task which devolves on those who are subject to the duty is to define the problem. They are told only that something is the matter: that it behooves them to find out what it is, and how to correct it, and then to work out the cure. ”

“ If the task appeals to him merely as a task, it is as certain psychologically, as is the law of action and reaction physically, that the child is simply engaged in acquiring the habit of divided attention ”

“ Task Idea Applies to the Work of the Organization. — The work which is to be done by the organization should be considered the task of the organization, and this organization task is studied before individual tasks are set. ”

“ That the task is a complex one, embracing many subordinate problems which must be treated seriatim, is attested both by the breadth of its scope and the variety of the interests from which it may be approached. ”

“ There are moments in which the mind attains the highest and clearest perception,—seasons in which, whatever the nature of the mental operation, the faculties address themselves readily to the task, and labor becomes less a toil than an actual pleasure. ”

“ It calls imperatively for a task, something to do with brain and hands—a productive something which fits the common good, without which the world would not be as orderly and as happy. Say what we will, it matters very little what the task is—if it contributes in some fashion to this superior orderliness and happiness. ”

“ In what I have said upon this most exceedingly delicate point, and which I again submit to your most honourable confidence, I have no other object but just to show you without reserve how we stand, and to exemplify what I set out with—that without skilful and judicious management we shall totally mistake the road to the accomplishment of the arduous task which we have undertaken, and involve the cause and every individual in not merely defeat, but disgrace. ”

“ It is this golden faculty of persistence, concentration, diligence, which makes every great ruler and leader of men, and raises even the very ordinary person out of the drudgery of mere task-work into the dignity of large and noble and delightful toil. ”

“ Show them you can do perfectly the task given you to do, and you will be given a chance at a larger task. Some day when you least expect it something will happen. You will be called up into a position of power. ”

“ And to the women who are to be employed within she gives חק chok, the task - the kind of work they are to do, the materials out of which they are to form it, and the quantity she expects from each. Thus all the servants are settled: their food, work, and tasks appointed. Every thing is done orderly. ”

“ Hence the attention and care devoted by each man to the task of deliberation, observation, or execution, are less keen and continuously sustained, and a judgment or decision is more lightly and easily arrived at, grounds which the individual, deliberating alone, would reject or weigh again and again serving to determine an immediate judgment. ”

“ This Task of ordering and distinguishing, which has no Merit, when perform'd with regard to external Bodies, the Objects of our Senses, rises in its Value, when directed towards the Operations of the Mind, in proportion to the Difficulty and Labour, which we meet with in performing it. ”

“ By such strong and nicely-fitted movements of the machine of Providence it is, that the tasks of life are distributed where best they may be performed, and its burdens apportioned where best they may be sustained. ”

“ For, though a man's mind is adjusted to carrying out, without questioning, any task that is demanded of him, yet in the execution of this duty he is allowed the full scope of his invention and initiative. ”

“ They must concentrate every ounce of their energy, and focus their entire attention, on the tasks immediately ahead, resolved to work unremittingly and unflinchingly until the goals of the present Plan are achieved. ”

“ To bring about the conviction of wrong-doing, to awaken desire and supply an incentive, to keep the hope of attainment alive, to encourage weakened nerves in a new and persistent effort, and all the while to build and strengthen and develop faculties and powers that had been dormant and well-nigh destroyed, is a task that demands a high order of skill and resourcefulness. ”

“ I have done all that I came into this world to do. I have worked task work, and have the rest of the day to myself. ”

“ The last word, however, is not task but opportunity; for work, like all forms of education, prophesies the larger uses of energy, experience, and power which are to come when training and discipline have accomplished their ends and borne their fruit. ”

“ Knowest thou not who is most needed by all? He who commandeth great things.
To execute great things is difficult: but the more difficult task is to command great things. ”

“ In regard, however, to that second [1] question, – when or how your plan is to be carried out, – no one will advise at long range; we must take counsel in the presence of the actual situation. 3. You must be not only present in the body, but watchful in mind, if you would avail yourself of the fleeting opportunity. Accordingly, look about you for the opportunity; if you see it, grasp it, and with all your energy and with all your strength devote yourself to this task, – to rid yourself of those business duties. ”

“ Any ordinary man can, on any ordinary day, go and do a task, the favourable results of which may be foreseen. That's easy. The big thing is to go confidently to work on a task, the results of which nobody can possibly foresee—a task so vague and [pg I-288] improbable of definite results that small men hesitate. ”

“ People, as a rule, will not stop to realize what a task such an attempt actually is. As I wrote along, in long-hand at first, a whole army of little E's gathered around my desk, all eagerly expecting to be called upon. ”

“ To carry out properly a task which combined such difficult and untried elements, fresh minds were required--such as had not merely acquired experience under existing well-regulated forms of government, but such as had been schooled in real life, and, fitted with the necessary mental quickness, were also equipped for unforeseen contingencies. ”

“ her presence had not so much weight as to task thought, and yet enough to exercise it. ”

“ When conscious of our own weakness, and tempted to think of our task as heavy, or when complacent in our own power, and tempted to regard our task as easy, let us think of His ever-present work in and for His people, till it braces us for all duty, and rebukes our easy-going idleness. ”

“ And without the power to concentrate—that is to say, without the power to dictate to the brain its task and to ensure obedience—true life is impossible. Mind control is the first element of a full existence. ”

“ He said it made him feel that life was not an idle dream to be gaped and yawned through, but a noble task, full of duty and stern work. ”

“ It is obvious that to carry out these manifold duties efficiently, thoroughly and tactfully is no easy task and Shoghi Effendi greatly hopes that some one may be found who will be able to devote the necessary ability, time and energy to carry them out satisfactorily. ”

“ All of you have the trial of yourselves in your own power; each may undergo at this instant, before his own judgment seat, the ordeal by fire. Ask yourselves what is the leading motive which actuates you while you are at work. I do not ask you what your leading motive is for working—that is a different thing; you may have families to support—parents to help—brides to win; you may have all these, or other such sacred and pre-eminent motives, to press the morning's labour and prompt the twilight thought. ”

“ All of them will tell us about you as a person: how you think, how you behave. Desperately essential stuff, if you're to survive the sort of work we do here. What we find is the whole basis of our assignments. ”

“ The interesting fact to the leader is not alone that these habits control so absolutely, but that any habit may be easily and unconsciously formed by repetition of the act or thought, and that a habit once formed is overcome only by conscious effort and even by determined action of the will. ”

“ The motive of an action was the true test of it. A thousand men could do what seemed like the same deed, yet they would all be as different as the different motives for it, "for the deed is as the will." ”

“ Now it seems to me to be an excellent discipline whereby daily some self-denial and command may be acquired in overcoming the repugnance to doing from duty that which has in itself no attraction. In the first struggle to fix the attention and learn that which is without interest, but which must be done, a habit is gained of great importance. ”

“ In reality the spirit we call discipline is the result of the leader's whole conduct of himself and his job, of his personality and methods, of everything he does for his men, to his men and with them. ”

“ Their work had been confined for countless ages to a multiplicity of petty tasks--hand work and finger work--tasks wearing to body and mind in the extreme, but of a sort wholly failing to provoke that reaction of the vital forces which builds up and develops the parts exercised. ”

“ In that period you and I will have had time to become intimate with the needs, prejudices, deficiencies, as well as with the sterling good qualities of the operative class, so as to be able to take such practical steps as lie within our scope to remedy the former, and I trust we shall be able to interest and engage others in the same work. What is wanted is to set the ball rolling, not to kick it into the goal. ”

“ There are, of course, in every calling, those who go about the work of the day before them, doing it according to the rules of their craft, and asking no questions of the past or of the future, or of the aim and end to which their special labor is contributing. ”

“ The business of the will, then, is to retain the various faculties of our mind in that position where they are really doing the work we wish, and this position may be generalized into the three following attitudes; either we wish to act upon something, or be acted on by it, or to maintain a neutral position; in other words we either intend to project a force, or receive a force or keep a position of inactivity relatively to some particular object. ”

“ It is perhaps possible for each of us, who will with due earnestness inquire, to ascertain clearly what he, for his own part, ought to do; this let him, with true heart, do, and continue doing. The general issue will, as it has always done, rest well with a Higher Intelligence than ours. This day thou knowest ten commanded duties, seest in thy mind ten things which should be done for one that thou doest! Do one of them; this of itself will show thee ten others which can and shall be done. ”

“ Discipline, habit, and character, appear to be activity crystallized in seeking adaptation to our environments. What is the truth that stands out in relief? Clearly, that character, habit, and discipline, are the reflex upon ourselves of activity, moral, mental, or physical. Whence it seems to follow that useless or vicious activity will appear as useless or vicious character and discipline. ”