Effort
Without galvanizing our energy
and hopes,
Without fixing our purposes
and goals,
Life would be a wayward drifting
experience.
Goal and purpose create the motivation
and the
meaning,
The excitement and the color.
Effort is the transmitting fluid
of life,
Its organizer and creator.
We stretch our muscles and vibrate
our nerves,
To realize a vision, to uphold
a principle,
To absorb a sunset, to transmit
a laughter.
Effort is the breath of life,
the sculptor of its
achievements.
The pain of the muscles, the
sweat of the brow,
The sleepless nights and the
grinding days -
They are the furnace of life,
The deliverers of its essence,
Without them life would be mostly
benign biology.