Marcus woke himself with a simple thought: I'm getting up to do the work of a human being. The thing he was made for. He didn't promise himself praise or an easy day, just that the work was his to do and worth doing well. We often need a payoff to bother, and when the payoff is uncertain we drift. But the quality of your effort is up to you in a way the reward never is. You can't always control whether good work is seen or rewarded, but you can control whether it's good. Doing it well, for its own sake, is a quiet kind of freedom.

Inspired by the old idea of virtue as the only good. Written by Ugo Charles.