Could I Get a Side of Wisdom with That Plate of Knowledge Please?
Posted on July 18, 2015
About 200 years ago in the deep forest of Western Quebec there was a spectacular lumberjack competition where 2 competitors faced off to see who could chop down the most trees. The incumbent champion Jean-Francois, winner of 15 events in a row was starting to get older in age (about 35) and was being taken on by the most ferocious challenger yet Jean-Pierre, coming into the prime of his physical life at 24.
They objective was for them to chop down as many trees as they could over the course of an 8 hour day, whoever cut down the most trees would win.
Tension rose as the morning fog lifted and the bell rang to signify the start of the competition. They were off, Jean-Pierre was on fire as he chopped down 10 more trees than Jean- Francois after the first hour. Of course these types of events are not fun to watch so the whole crowd went home to come back for the final at the end of the day.
The lumberjacks continued to chop at an aggressive pace and after the crowd left Jean-Francois left and went behind the shed. Jean-Pierre thought that was crazy and he continued to work hard after 15 minutes Jean-Francois came back and continued to chop, then about an hour later he left again for another 15 minutes and then came back, Jean-Pierre thought to himself ‘Wow how has this guy been champion for so many years? He has no work ethic. I have got this in the bag if I keep working as hard as I can’. This pattern persisted throughout the day.
4 hours had passed and Jean-Pierre took a look over at Jean-Francois’ pile and it looked like it was getting close the same size, but that couldn’t be because he was taking breaks, so Jean-Pierre worked harder. 6 hours went by and to Jean-Pierre’s surprise it looked as though Jean-Francois had caught up, Jean-Pierre couldn’t have it so he chopped and swung harder and faster than he had been all day.
With 15 minutes to go the crowd started to filter back in and to their surprise Jean-Francois had caught up and surpassed Jean-Pierre by no fewer than 10 trees as the whistle blew to signal the end of the competition. Jean-Pierre went over to Jean-Francois after the competition to congratulate him and shake his hand, when he asked him. ‘I noticed you left to go behind the shed for 15 minutes every hour, what were you doing?’ and Jean-Francois shrugged and simply said I was sharpening my axe, why didn’t you sharpen yours?’ and Jean-Pierre responded ‘I didn’t have time!’
Stop swinging the dull axe in your life and take the time to sharpen it, not because I said so, because you deserve it!
