Excerpt from the book The One Thing
One evening, a young boy hopped up on his father’s lap and whispered, “Dad, we don't spend enough time together."
The father, who loved his son so dearly, knew in his heart that he was right and replied, "You're right son, and I'm so sorry! I promise that I'll make it up to you! Since tomorrow is Saturday, why don't we spend the entire day together? Just you and me!"
The next morning the father rose earlier than usual. He wanted to make sure he could still enjoy his ritual cup of coffee with the morning paper before his sone awoke, wound up and ready to go. He was caught by surprise when suddenly his son pulled the newspaper down and enthusiastically shouted, “Dad, I’m up. Let’s play!”
The father, although thrilled to see his son, found himself guiltily craving just a little more time to finish his morning routine. He searched for ideas and finally explained, the first game of the day would be a puzzle. Then when that was done they would head outside and play for the rest of the day.
Earlier in his reading, the father had seen a full-page ad with a picture of the world. He quickly found it again, tore it out, ripped it into little pieces, and spread them around the table. He found some tape for his son and said, “I want to see how fast you can put this puzzle together.” The boy enthusiastically dove right in, while his father was confident he had just bought himself some extra time, he went back to reading his paper.
Within minutes, the boy yanked down his father’s newspaper and proudly announced, “Dad I’m done!” The father was astonished. The son complete the handmade puzzle. The entire picture was in tact, and taped together on the table. The image of the world was perfect, with no piece out of place. In a mixed voice of confusion, pride, and wonder the father asked, “How did you do that so fast?”
The young boy beamed. “It was easy, Dad! I couldn’t do it at first and I started to give up, it was so hard. But then I dropped a couple pieces on the floor, and because it’s a glass table-top, when I looked up I saw that there was a picture of a man on the other side. That gave me an idea!”
“When I put the man together, the world just fell into place.”
I’m not sure there is a metaphorical story with a philosophical meaning more useful then that..
The world is filled with people working tirelessly to put their world together. But the pieces are scattered far and wide. We all want a better life, and would love to have the pieces so we can put them in place.. but the world doesn’t work like that.
All success in life, in your world, starts and ends with you.
Success is an inside job
Put yourself together, and your world falls into place.
Learn more on this:
Book: The One Thing
https://www.the1thing.com