Man’s main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is. The most important product of his effort is his own personality.

Man’s main task is to give birth to himself.

Man's task is to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious.

The moral task of man is a process of spiritualization. All creatures are go-betweens, and we are placed in time that by diligence in spiritual business we may grow liker and nearer to God. The aim of man is beyond the temporal — in the serene region of the everlasting Present.

At your birth a seed is planted. That seed is your uniqueness. It wants to grow, transform itself, and flower to its full potential. It has a natural, assertive energy to it. Your Life's Task is to bring that seed to flower, to express your uniqueness through your work. You have a destiny to fulfill. The stronger you feel and maintain it — as a force, a voice or in whatever form — the greater your chance of fulfilling this Life's Task and achieving mastery.

The first duty of a man is to think for himself

Man must not only make himself: the weightiest thing he has to do is to determine what he is going to be. He is causa sui to the second power.

Every man's foremost task is the actualization of his unique, unprecedented and never-recurring potentialities, and not the repetition of something that another, and be it even the greatest, has already achieved.

the whole work of man really seems to consist in nothing but proving to himself every minute that he is a man and not a piano-key!

Life presents itself first and foremost as a task: the task of maintaining itself, the task of earning one's living. If this task is accomplished, what has been gained is a burden, and there then appears a second task: that of doing something with it so as to ward off boredom, which hovers over every secure life like a bird of prey. Thus the first task is to gain something and the second to become unconscious of what has been gained, which is otherwise a burden.

What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life — daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.
These tasks, and therefore the meaning of life, differ from man to man, and from moment to moment. Thus it is impossible to define the meaning of life in a general way. Questions about the meaning of life can never be answered by sweeping statements. “Life” does not mean something vague, but something very real and concrete, just as life’s tasks are also very real and concrete. They form man’s destiny, which is different and unique for each individual. No man and no destiny can be compared with any other man or any other destiny. No situation repeats itself, and each situation calls for a different response. Sometimes the situation in which a man finds himself may require him to shape his own fate by action. At other times it is more advantageous for him to make use of an opportunity for contemplation and to realize assets in this way. Sometimes man may be required simple to accept fate, to bear his cross. Every situation is distinguished by its uniqueness, and there is always only one right answer to the problem posed by the situation at hand.
When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his suffering as his task; his single and unique task. He will have to acknowledge the fact that even in suffering he is unique and alone in the universe. No one can relieve him of his suffering or suffer in

God has assigned each person a specific mission in this world: as He created the universe, He arranged primal causes so that the uninterrupted chain of their effects would engender the conditions and circumstances most favorable to carrying out that mission. Every man, therefore, is born with skills proportionate to the mission entrusted to him and, throughout the course of his life, environment, circumstances, and everything else contribute to make it possible and easy for him to achieve his aim. In fact, man’s perfection entirely consists in the attainment of that aim. The more accurately he manages to realize his task, the more scrupulously he fulfills its mission, the greater and holier he becomes in God’s eyes.

Whatever your life's work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.

The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own...