Life is a task to be done. It is a fine thing to say defunctus est; it means that the man has done his task.
By bells and many other similar techniques they (schools) teach that nothing is worth finishing. The gross error of this is progressive: if nothing is worth finishing then by extension nothing is worth starting either. Few children are so thick-skulled they miss the point.
One bright morning when my work is over I will fly away home.
What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.
I would never finish a painting if I didn't have a deadline.
One must stop conducting research before one has finished. Otherwise, one will never stop and never finish.
There is large difference between indolent impatience of labor and intellectual impatience of delay, large difference between leaving things unfinished because we have more to do or because we are satisfied with what we have done.
By seeing life's experiences on through to the end, on our small scale we can finally say, as Jesus did on the cross, "It is finished". We too can then have "finished [our] preparations," having done the particular work God gave each of us to do.
Measure not the work until the day's out and the labor done.
