Your Future Lies In the Answer To This Question

The future does not lie in your background, your past, your present preoccupation.

Your future does not lie in how bad people have treated you, how you badly your circumstances might have been.

Your future lies in your Answer to One Simple Question.

One simple question, and it can affect your destiny.

This is the question:

"What are you doing, and Why are you doing it?"

Here's a story of 3 men with the same job, same background and same duties.

"A magnificent cathedral was going up. Already it dwarfed structures in the entire country and it had not reached half its intended elevation or a quarter of the land it would cover the incomparable frescoes, the marvelous stained glass windows, the ornate carvings- these were all still notions in the minds of the architect and the cabal of master craftsmen he had assembled.

As the architect walked along the dusty road to inspect his creation unfolding, he passed 3 men toiling in the hot noonday sun. Each was a young man in the prime of life. Each was performing the same task. A painful laborious task. Each would take a piece of rock, put it on a large flat stone, and hit it with a sledgehammer till it broke. To each he posed the same question, what are you doing, my good man, and why are you doing it? "

The first man answered : " Can't you see what I am doing? I am breaking rocks and I do it because I get ha'pennoth a day."

The second man answered: " I am making the small stones that will go into the wall of yonder building. I do it so I can feed my family."

The third man answered: " I am helping construct this wondrous cathedral you see before you. When it is finished, people will come here from many countries to gaze upon its marvels. I do it so I can learn how, for, truth to tell, I can earn a better wage with less effort as an apprentice,"

On an impulse the architect summoned his assistant and asked him to keep track of each of the men over the years.

Four decades later, the first man had died. He had remained a day laborer working at even more menial tasks when his strength eroded. The second man had retired and was living in modest comfort. He had, in time, become a craftsman and achieved a reputation as a dependable, if unimaginative, worker.

The third man? The architect had no need to ask about him. His fame was still spreading, and the wondrous edifices he had conceived of dotted the land."

What are you doing and why are you doing this?

Powerful question.

Ponder on it.

Dream on it.

Give it all the thought you can.

It will determine your future.

technorati tags: future, dream, vision, bricklayer