Fireside Chat: Duty

Duty is the cold, bare anatomy of righteousness.[1]

            At times, the way that men look at their responsibilities is misguided. When he exclaims, "I have to go to work," he is acting out of the prism of duty. When he labors over his house, possessions, and available domain, he usually explains himself as doing what he has to do. When he witnesses the women and other men enjoying their lives while adhering to the same duties he is laboring at, he tends to draw anger and jealousy towards them. He fails to realize that he is living life with a cracked lens. As William George Jordan explains:

The man who gives one hour of his life to loving, consecrated service to humanity is doing higher, better, truer work in the world than an army of Roman sentinels paying useless tribute to the red tape of duty.[2]

Instead of saying, "I have to go to work," exclaim with thankfulness and joy, "I GET to go to work." Instead of saying that "I have to pay the bills," "I have to fix the faucet," or "I have to get my wife an anniversary gift," say to yourself that you get to do these things because you are now capable of doing these things. When you stop looking around at life, seeing nothing more than a long list of obligations, see your life as nothing more than endless opportunities to give thanks to God for allowing you to do these things in the first place. Remember that human life almost reads like a poem. It has its rhythm and beat, its internal cycles of growth and decay. A man must see life as an opportunity, not as an obligation.

[1] William George Jordan, “The Red Tape of Duty,” in The Secrets to Power, Mastery, and Truth (Semper Virilis Publishing, 2019), 24.

[2] Ibid, 25.