I loved…above all the sense the author himself was having a wonderful time, writing something he thoroughly enjoyed.
Louis L’Amour
Education of a Wandering Man
We will try to avoid monopolizing the entire week with Louis L’Amour (1908-88) quotes, but regular readers of this feature know spending a couple-three days with one writer is hardly unprecedented. Education of a Wandering Man was our introduction to Louis L’Amour, the book being given to us by Mom many years ago. We resisted reading it at first because we dismissed Louis as a hack writer of drug store westerns, which shows what we know. If you are a L’Amour fan and have not read Education of a Wandering Man you might consider it and any serious reader will probably like it, too, because it offers numerous insights into both L’Amour and our human experience.
You know, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a writer, a performer or an artist who appears to be thoroughly enjoying what they are doing, though these are certainly common examples. You see it all the time in everyday life, too. We’ve seen in it waiters and waitresses from Denny’s to 5-star restaurants, we’ve seen it in sports officials and we’ve seen it auto mechanics. We saw it in the judge who presided over the trial we were jurors at years ago and we’ve seen it in preachers and we saw it in the navy. You will see it in anyone doing what they were meant to do.
The pleasure of doing something you thoroughly enjoy is not reserved for others. It is not reserved for the wealthy or the supremely talented or the lucky. It is also reserved for us and, in fact, is usually there for the taking. All we need is the wisdom to know where our talents lie, the courage to get the most out of them and the patience to see where this journey takes us. It is, at once, both the easiest and the most difficult thing we will do. It’s easy because all it requires is following our hearts and trusting our instincts. Difficult, because it must be done every day, from the day we commit to our path until the day we die. Doing it some days and not others, some years and not others, will not result in the life we were meant to live.
We not only have the opportunity to thoroughly enjoy what we are doing, we have an obligation to enjoy what we are doing because only when we are on our path, only when we are maximizing our talents, only when we are making our time serve us will be doing ourselves or our fellow humans any good.
The Thought for the Day runs regularly. Gaylon began stockpiling quotes in 1988.
