I recently reread one of my favourite books, The Four Agreements, by Don Miguel Ruiz. I first read it in 1998, then again in 2003. A few weeks ago, I picked it off my shelf to read for a third time.

You may be thinking I?m a slow learner, but books speak in different ways at different times, and I found the fourth agreement, Always Do Your Best, was speaking to me. In it, Ruiz says, ?Doing your best is taking action because you love it, not because you?re expecting a reward.?

That made sense, but after reading it I thought, What about those that don?t love their work, or parts of their work? A few pages later he answered my question:

?If you take action just for the sake of doing it, without expecting a reward, you will find that you enjoy every action that you do. Rewards will come but you will not be attached to the reward. You can even get more than what you would have imagined for yourself without expecting a reward. If we like what do, if we are always doing our best, then we are really enjoying life. Seek the pleasure in what you?re doing, rather than in how it might benefit you.?

What are your thoughts?

?Whatever your life’s work is, do it well. Do it so well that no one else could do it better. If it falls on your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, like Shakespeare wrote poetry, like Beethoven composed music; sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper.’?

– Martin Luther King Jr.