To Do The Unique

I’ve always loved the wisdom of this prescient moment by one of man’s great thinkers. Take a moment with it, study it, apply it to your own vocation. It’s da bomb.

“Each man has his own vocation. The talent is the call. There is one direction in which all space is open to him. He has faculties silently inviting him thither to endless exertion. He is like a ship in a river; he runs against obstructions on every side but one, on that side all obstruction is taken away and he sweeps serenely over a deepening channel into an infinite sea. He inclines to do something which is easy to him and good when it is done, but which no other man can do. He has no rival, for the more truly he consults his own powers, the more difference will his work exhibit from the work of any other. His ambition is exactly proportioned to his powers. The height of the pinnacle is determined by the breadth of the base. Every man has this call of the power to do something unique and no man has any other call.

By doing his work he makes the need felt which he can supply, and creates the taste by which he is enjoyed. By doing his own work he unfolds himself. The goods of fortune may come and go like summer leaves; let him scatter them on every wind as the momentary signs of his infinite productiveness”.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson