Welcome to our Sunday Talks.

Today's talk was edited and adapted from Little Builders by Dorothy Grenzside, published in 1916.

Some people think it is strange when I talk about the joy of work.

They begun to look on work as wearisome and dull, as something to be

hurried over, so that they can get back to their games, TV and relaxation. So I feel compelled

to keep repeating that work is the builder of joy. Why? Because it is the builder of those qualities

which alone can bring you joy. Therein lies its value. It is not so much of the work you do

that is of real importance as the growth of this spirit that results from it. For whether you grow strong

of purpose, or feeble of will, depends upon the energy with which you labor, not upon the

kind of work that you may do. Therefore, you shouldn't judge a person by whether the world has called them great or not.

For some of the noblest of the world's great women and men have lived and died unnoticed.

Remember that the world can never build you. You have to build yourself.

Sometimes I hear people say, I wish I had something to do. Yet there is work for everyone. If you are idle, I am afraid that it's because you will not do the work that lies ready and waiting at your hand. If the work of a lifetime be hidden from you,

there is always the task of today. It may not be just the work you would choose, but if it comes to you

unsought, you may be sure that it is the very work of which you are in need.

There is no work, however humble, that is not worth the doing.

And it is always wise to bear in mind that if it seems wearisome or dull, it is you yourself that make it so, for everything

has interest if you know the way to find it. Every morning fix your mind on just one thing you

mean to do, and at night look back over your day to see if you have carried out your purpose.

If so, you may sleep with a happy heart,

even if your work be nothing greater than the mending of something broken,

or the watering of your garden.

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