Keep Your Axe Sharpened

Dear lovely people,

Jambo the renowned firewood seller employed Tobi to help split more wood for him. The pay was really good and Tobi was told he would be paid bonuses if he could split much wood per day. For those reasons, Tobi was motivated and determined to do his best. Jambo gave him a well sharpened axe and showed him the piles upon piles of firewood to split.

At the end of the first day, Tobi split over five tons of wood. “Congratulations,” Jambo said beaming. As promised, he paid Tobi with a bonus. Very motivated by Jambo’s gesture, Tobi tried harder the next day, but he could only split four tons of wood. The third day he tried even harder, but he could only split three tons of wood. Day after day he was splitting less and less quantity of wood and paid no bonus.

“It’s either I am sick somewhere within or I must be losing my strength”, Tobi thought. He went to Jambo and apologized, saying that he could not understand what was going on with him.

Thoughtfully, Jambo asked him a simple question “When was the last time you sharpened your axe?”. Tobi responded “Sharpen? I had no time to sharpen my axe. I have been very busy trying to split the wood…” “That is the simple reason you’ve not been able to split as much wood as on the first day” explained the smiling Jambo.

Everybody wants a better life, all of us expect some positive change as an offshoot of the efforts we invest in the activities we carryout daily but then a critical look will point to the fact that our lives are like what happened between Jambo and Tobi. We sometimes get so busy that we don’t take time to sharpen the “axe”. In today’s world, it seems that everyone is busier than ever, but achieving less success than ever.

Why is that? Could it be that we have forgotten how to keep the “axe” of our lives permanently sharp? There’s nothing wrong with activity and hard work. But we should not get so busy that we neglect other truly important things in life, like smart work, our personal life, taking time to get close to our Creator, giving more time for our family, taking time to read etc.

We all need time to relax, to think and meditate, to learn and grow, to give back to our communities and to cultivate healthy relationships. If we don’t take the time to sharpen the “axe”, we will become dull and lose our effectiveness. This alone destroys our performance.