The Great Work of Your Life: A Guide for the Journey to Your True Calling

Now Frost was “onto his bone,” as Thoreau would say. He knew that this was a task big enough for a lifetime. He knew that he would be chewing on it for the rest of his career.

They would not find me changed from him they knew— Only more sure of all I thought was true.

If you bring forth what is within you, it will save you

A considerable amount of time spent within the so-called “domain of the task.” For Corot, for example, this meant hanging out with other painters—talking about his art, talking about trends in art, getting support for the lifestyle of the artist.

With Denial of Dharma, there is often a vagueness, a lack of clarity—and confusion about the nature of dharma itself.

Note: Arjuna, the quintessential man of action, spends the entire Gita on his butt.

Frost was intuitively aware of an important principle: In the cultivation of dharma, there is nothing more important than understanding what conditions are needed, and relentlessly creating them.

Alas, it turns out that the process of unification requires saying “no” to actions that do not support dharma—saying “no” to detours, and to side channels of all kinds, even to some pretty terrific side channels. It requires snipping off all manner of “other options.” The root of the word “decide” means, literally, “to cut off.”

“No man can know what power he can rightly call his own unless he presses a little,” he wrote.