From a writer:

“It’s my truest happiness … As soon as I walk into my study, I start getting cues of pleasure — my books on the shelves, the articular odor of the room. These cues begin to tie into what I’ve written and what I’m going to write. Even if I’ve stayed up all night, my fatigue disappears, just like that. There’s a whole range of pleasure waiting for me, from making one sentence work to getting a new insight.”

From an Olympic gymnast:

“A lot of people go for things only because a teacher told them they should, or their parents. People who get into something for the money, the fame, or the medal can’t be effective. When you discover you own desire, you’re not gong to wait for other people to find solutions to your problems. You’re going to find your own. I set goals for myself, but underlying all the goals and the work was the fact that I enjoyed it. I thought gymnastics was fun. And I had no idea that I might someday be an Olympian.”

From a painter:

“The routine is important to me. When I get started, there’s a wonderful sense of well-being. I like to feel myself plodding along. I specifically choose that word, plod. When it is going good, I feel ‘this is the essential me.’ It’s the routine itself that feeds me. If I didn’t do it, I’d be betraying the essential me.”

These views are all shared from the spirited little guide, Mastery by George Leonard. They all have one thing in common: savoring the everyday act of creating and performing — the joy of just getting up and doing what we are meant to do. So often we forget the simple pleasures that flow from those days when nothing much happens, when we are “plodding” along — moving slowly but steadily. Today, let’s savor the joys and satisfaction of just being: being in our element and doing what we were meant to do. Write on!