Author: Mary

I am a recently retired college professor. Up until June 2012 I taught human behavior and the social environment, social justice and human rights at Monmouth University, in the school of social work. My great joys are reading and telling stories! Reading and thinking about the meaning and implications of what is written. Good literature has the potential of alchemy! of social change toward a world where social and economic justice is respected and where human rights are celebrated.

On mirror gazing

On By MaryIn compassion, growth into humanityLeave a comment

So I was reading this book “The Hidden Lamp” which is a compilation of stories about Buddhist Awakened women.  Lots of very cool stories that make me want to stop, scratch my chin and think for a bit. And when I do, I often find myself looking at the world just a little bit differently.

The story du jour is about a convent where the abbess would meditate in front of a great mirror in order to see into her own nature.  Over time each generation of nuns would meditate in front of the mirror concentrating on the question “Where is a single feeling, a single thought, in the mirror image at which I gaze?” The good sisters were searching for the purpose of their lives, looking to discover who they were as human beings.

Well reading that story got me to remembering a moment in my life when I was maybe in junior high school, maybe 7th or 8th grade, so just about 12 or 13 years old, just starting to realize that there was something to this becoming a young woman stuff.  I was in a small department store with my mother, wandering around waiting for her to be finished with whatever it was she was doing, and I walked past the jewelry counter. Of course there was a mirror on the counter that caught my eye – that is exactly what mirrors in department stores are supposed to do. I remember looking into it and noticing the zits on my chin – remember I was just barely 13 and not really conscious of much at that point in my life. So, just as I’m starting to notice these fatal flaws on my face, the sales person puts her hand over the mirror, moves it away and says to my mother, something like “these girls are so full of themselves all they want to do is look at their pretty faces.”  Funny, I never really resonated to the pretty faces part. Truth be told, I don’t think of my self as particularly pretty. I’ve always thought of my self as someone people liked because I have “a nice personality” but, anyway, what I resonated to was the critique of looking in the mirror.  So the story about this meditation resonated with me.

The commentary on the meditation included notes from a contemporary Buddhist practitioner who took up the meditation for a week. She brilliantly describes the her distractions from the first several days.  By the seventh day she was able to look into the mirror and see a courageous woman who was at least willing to look at herself.

And that really resonated for me. It took me from being critiqued for being curious about what I look like to an affirmation that it is not only OK, but a good think to take a good long look at who you are – and to find some peace and comfort in it.

So, maybe we should all try this?  Have a look at yourself in the mirror – 5 minutes a day for a week. What do you see? What are your reactions?  Do remember to look with the eyes of compassion!

In celebration of Flamingos

On By MaryIn happinessLeave a comment

Ah, flamingos! Those bright pink birds that signal summer time – summer time anytime of the year.  There is just something about them that touches my heart and makes me smile.  I LOVE pink flamingos – you know the glow in the dark plastic ones that the word kitsch was invented to describe. Yes, I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE them!  There is just something about them that makes me want to stand up just a little taller, put my hand on my hip, grin an half grin, and say, “lead me no into temptation? Hell no! Don’t bother, I am the short cut!”  Somehow I look at a pink flamingo and I find myself channeling Mae West and Yogi Berra all rolled into one.

So, you know I was so very sad earlier this summer when I learned that Don Featherstone had died. At the ripe old age of 21 when Mr. Featherstone was working for Union Products in Massachusetts, he invented the pink flamingo lawn ornament for his company. Imagine! At 21! What insight! What genius! What joy he brought to the world! . . . well, to me anyway.

So, here’s to you Mr. Featherstone! May you rest in joy, cradled in appreciation for the color and delight you brought to our world!

And here’s to the flamingo! A gregarious wading bird, child of the crane family, symbol of individuality and balance (go watch one calmly standing in the water on one foot), always outgoing and maybe just a little flirtatious, ever true to self while loyal to the flock – flamingos like swans mate for life.  I have read that the spirit of the flamingo is a healer of the heart and of emotional imbalances – and who can’t use a little bit of healing and emotional balance in their lives?

In the spirit of perpetual summer, let us all raise a glass with a little umbrella in it to Don Featherstone and the pink flamingo!!

 

Song of Creation

On By MaryIn happiness, music of life3 Comments

The other day I was driving along on a side road and I saw a sign advertising a Jefferson Starship concert. I pulled off to the side of the road and stared at the sign. Then I got my cell phone out and checked, and yes it was still 2015, but some iteration of Jefferson Starship was indeed still performing.

Now, to appreciate the significance of this for me, you have to realize that Jefferson Airplane, the group from which Jefferson Starship evolved, was my most all-time favorite group in the universe. I really wanted to be Grace Slick (their lead singer) when I grew up. Then I realized that in order to be Grace Slick I would need to have self-confidence and be able to sing with full throated exuberance.  Two strikes, so I set that dream aside.

But still, Jefferson Starship still performing in 2015! And then, of course, some of their tunes started to play in my head.  “You are the sound of creation.”  And then I thought, no, it is “you are the soul of creation.” And then I thought “you are the song of creation.” And then I thought, “Oh, just go google it.” So I found the lyrics.  Not sound nor soul nor song, but crown. “You are the crown of creation.” Recorded by Jefferson Airplane 47 years ago in 1968. Sung by yours truly on way too many car trips, with the windows rolled up nice a tight – because if the car windows are rolled up, no one can see you or hear you, right?

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this little trip down memory lane ….

 

“Crown of Creation” Jefferson Airplane 1968

 

You are the crown of creation.

You are the crown of creation,

And you’ve got no place to go.

 

Soon you’ll attain the stability you strive for,

In the only way that it’s granted:

In a place among the fossils of our time.

 

In loyalty to their kind

They cannot tolerate our minds.

In loyalty to our kind

We cannot tolerate their obstruction!

 

Life is change.

How it differs from the rocks.

I’ve seen their ways too often for my liking.

New worlds to gain.

My life is to survive and be alive

for you.

 

You know that being who I am now, I have to ponder the lyrics for a bit – just a little bit. But, think about it. To be the crown of creation – the crown, the summit, the culmination, that is something, yes? And, life is change. Would that we could remember that! Change really is the only constant. We are the crown of creation, an ongoing every changing creation. Nice, yes? But hang on for the ride, because changes are rarely smooth or easy. But, oh my they can be fun and exciting! So, in the spirit of Manny Gordon: Enjoy, Enjoy, Enjoy!!!

Katharine Lee Bates

On By MaryIn strong womenLeave a comment

My interest in finding women heroes continues unabated.  Recently I was reminded about Katharine Lee Bates and thought I would share a bit of her life with you. She was born on August 12, 1859 on Cape Cod in Falmouth, Massachusetts. Bates died in Wellesley, Massachusetts, on September 28, 1929, and is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery at Falmouth.  She lived just 69 years, but what a 69 years they were.

Katharine Lee Bates is best known for the song, “America the Beautiful,” but she was also an accomplished author and educator. She also popularized “Mrs. Santa Claus” through her poem Goody Santa Claus on a Sleigh Ride (1889).

She graduated from Wellesley College with a B.A. in 1880. In 1888 she returned to Wellesley as a member of the faculty, first as an English instructor, later to become the head of the English Department.

In 1893 Bates spent part of the summer in Colorado where she lectured at Colorado College. During her visit, she went on a hike to Pikes Peak. Later she remembered:

“One day some of the other teachers and I decided to go on a trip to 14,000-foot Pikes Peak. We hired a prairie wagon. Near the top we had to leave the wagon and go the rest of the way on mules. I was very tired. But when I saw the view, I felt great joy. All the wonder of America seemed displayed there, with the sea-like expanse.” That view inspired her to write “America the Beautiful” her most famous poem. She quickly wrote the first draft in a notebook she had with her on the trip.  “It was then and there, as I was looking out over the sea-like expanse of fertile country spreading away so far under those ample skies, that the opening lines of the hymn floated into my mind,” she later said, according to the Library of Congress web page on “America the Beautiful.”

Bates’ teaching career was the central interest of her adult life. She believed that through literature, human values could be revealed and developed. She wrote for popular magazines to supplement her income and was quite prolific. She was also involved in social reform activities, working for labor reform and planning the College Settlements Association with Vida Scudder. Over the years, she became an accomplished academic and a respected scholar of English literature. She retired from Wellesley in 1925.

Bates never married. But for 25 years she lived with Katharine Coman, who was a history and political economy teacher and founder of the Wellesley College School Economics department. Bates and Coman until Coman’s death in 1915.

In 1910, when a colleague described “free-flying spinsters” as “fringe on the garment of life”, Bates answered: “I always thought the fringe had the best of it. I don’t think I mind not being woven in.”

Of course some of us describe the couple as lesbians citing as an example Bates’ 1891 letter to Coman: “It was never very possible to leave Wellesley [for good], because so many love-anchors held me there, and it seemed least of all possible when I had just found the long-desired way to your dearest heart…Of course I want to come to you, very much as I want to come to Heaven.” Others people will contest the use of the term lesbian to describe what they see as a “Boston marriage”.  Those who contest the use of the word lesbian say that we cannot know the sexual activities of a couple. Maybe so. But to be a lesbian is not only about sex. We do know that Bates and Coman live together for 25 years. After Coman died, Bates said, “So much of me died with Katharine Coman that I’m sometimes not quite sure whether I’m alive or not.” We know that they were intellectually deeply engaged with each other, that their letters and Bates poems expressed love between them.  For me that is enough. As I have often said to my life partner, I always assume the best of everyone I meet. I always assume everyone I meet is lesbian or gay. And I can count on heterosexual to declare their heterosexuality within the first 5 minutes of conversation. Given these threads of evidence about the relationship between Bates and Coman, I will continue to assume the best about them and will believe that they were women who loved women and were lesbians who lived together for 25 years.

In 1922, seven years after Coman’s death Bates published Yellow Clover: A Book of Remembrance, a collection of poems written “to or about my Friend” Katharine Coman, some of which had been published in Coman’s lifetime.

So, the next time you find yourself singing “oh beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain  . . .” do remember that it was written by Katharine Lee Bates of Cape Cod, a professor of English, and the life partner of Katharine Coman.

 

If you find yourself on Cape Cod, be sure to stop by the town of Falmouth were the Bates family home on Main Street is preserved by the Falmouth Historical Society.

 

Hannah Arendt and Banality

On By MaryIn Choices we make, Shoah, strong womenLeave a comment

There is something about the word banal. I just find myself liking the way it feels in my head, on my tongue. Banal – for an ordinary, common, cliché, overworked, overused, kind of word, there is just something about banal that feels fresh, original and interesting to me. But that probably has to do with my earliest substantive encounter with banal. I was introduced to the word through Hannah Arendt, and her use of the phrase “the banality of evil.”

Hannah was a Jewish German born political theorist. She escaped Europe during the Holocaust and became an American citizen. Her theoretical work dealt with the nature of power, democracy, authority and totalitarianism.

In 1961 she was working for the New Yorker, and was sent to observe the trial of Adolf Eichmann. Her observations and reporting evolved into the book: “Eichmann in Jerusalem: A report on the Banality of Evil.”  That was where she coined the phrase “the banality of evil.” In the book she wondered if evil is always intentional, or if perhaps some people thoughtlessly obey orders or follow group opinions without critical evaluation of the consequences of their actions and inactions, none the less, leading to the perpetration of evil in the world.

Here are two of the many quotes from Hannah that resonate for me

The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal. From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and of our moral standards of judgment, this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together.

The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.

So, for all of this? Let us always remember to be awake, to be aware, to think about the long and short term implications of our everyday actions. What we do, what we choose to do, it all makes a difference. Life lived fully, life lived well is anything but banal.

 

 

Corrie ten Boom and forgiveness

On By MaryIn forgiveness, Shoah, strong women2 Comments

Sometimes being ordinary is enough. Sometimes being ordinary is extraordinary.

On April 15 1892, Cornelia ten Boom was born to an ordinary family in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The Ten Boom family was devoutly Christian and they were serious about putting the principles of their faith into practice. Family, friends and neighbors were always welcomed into their home and at their table. After May 1940 when the Nazi’s invaded the Netherlands and began arresting Jewish people, the Ten Boom family remained an ordinary family who welcomed family, friends and neighbors into their home and at their table. They did not discriminate based on religion. If someone came to their door, the Ten Boom family welcomed that person into their home.

So one day in 1942 a Jewish woman appeared at their door, suitcase in hand. Her husband had been arrested. Her son had gone into hiding. The police had already questioned her, and she was afraid to return home. She had heard that the ten Booms had helped other Jewish people, and so she came asking for their help. Corrie’s father Casper welcomed the woman into their home and promised to help her.

Corrie managed to acquire extra ration cards, and they became very active in the Dutch Underground, hiding Jewish families and helping them to escape to freedom.  In February 1944 a Dutch informant told the Nazi’s about the Ten Boom family’s work. Later that day the entire Ten Boom family was arrested and sent to prison. Casper, Corrie’s father died ten days later. Corrie’s brothers were released, but Corrie and her sister were to Ravensbruck concentration camp in Germany. Betsie died there on December 16, 1944.  Corrie was released on December 28, 1944 through a clerical error.  Shortly after her release, all of the women in the camp were executed.

All of the Jewish people that the Ten Booms had been hiding at the time of their arrest remained undiscovered, and all but one, an older woman, survived the war.

After the war Israel honored Corrie ten Boom by naming her “Righteous Among the Nations”. She was also knighted by the Queen of the Netherlands in recognition of her work during the war. Sometimes being ordinary is indeed extraordinary

But this story that Corrie tells about her experiences after the war is what I find most extraordinary. She says that she was traveling in Germany in 1947, giving lectures on the importance of forgiveness. After one of her lectures she was approached by a man who she recognized as one of the cruelest of the guards from the Ravensbruck prison camp. She understandably felt a myriad of emotions – forgiveness not among them. Having lived all of her life as a devout Christian, Corrie did what she had done all of her life. She prayed. She took the hands of the former prison guard, and she prayed from the depth of her heart. And she found the grace to forgive him. That I find most extraordinary.

She also wrote that in her post-war experience with other victims of Nazi inhumanities, those who were able to forgive were best able to rebuild their lives.

In 1977, 85-year-old Corrie moved to Placentia, California. In 1978, she suffered two strokes, the first rendering her unable to speak, and the second resulting in paralysis. She died on her 91st birthday, 15 April 1983, after a third stroke. Corrie ten Boom was an ordinary woman who did extraordinary things. I think we can all learn a lesson or two from her – forgiveness among them.

Corrie ten Boom wrote a number of books, perhaps her most well-known book is The Hiding Place, which describes the work of her family during the war years. You should give it a read.

Emily Greene Balch a Woman for Peace

On By MaryIn Nobel Women, Peace, strong womenLeave a comment

Time and place do matter. Where and when you were born, who you know and associate can make all the difference in how your life plays out, and in how your actions and work are regarded and remembered. Sometimes even monumental greatness is overshadowed by another person’s fame.

For example, Jane Addams comes as close to achieving household recognition as is probable for any social worker. And rightly so. She is a grand mother of the settlement house movement in the United States. Her Chicago based Hull House was the home to dozens of nationally recognized reform minded women. She helped to found the Women’s International League for Peace and freedom, and she won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931.

And then there is Emily Greene Balch. “Who?” you ask.  To which I reply, “my point exactly!” Emily Greene Balch, born on January 8, 1867 in Boston, MA; died January 9, 1961, 94 years old. And what a 94 years they were.

Emily Greene Balch won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1946 when she was 79 years old. It is interesting to me that even discussions of her as one of very few women Nobel Laureates often begin by noting that she was a colleague of Jane Addams.  But, Emily Greene Balch stands as her own woman who warrants recognition for her contributions and accomplishments.

Emily Greene Balch graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1890, a member of the college’s first graduating class. She was awarded Bryn Mawr’s first Fellowship and used that to study Paris’s economy which led to the publication of her first book, Assistance of the Poor in France. She was 26 when the book was published.  She then returned to the United States, took a job as a social worker with the Boston Children’s Aid Society, and founded the Dennison House Settlement. After further studying economics, in 1897 she became a professor at Wellesley Women’s College where she taught for 21 years until 1918.  Of course while she was teaching she remained internationally active, working to improve economic and social living conditions, and actively advocating for peace throughout the world.

So, she ‘left’ Wellesley in 1918. Why would she leave an academic position when she was only 51? Clearly that was too young to retire. Depending on how you read the story, the long and short of it is that she was ‘let go’ by the college for her outspoken peace work.  Emily had taken a leave from Wellesley to study the living condition of Slavic people.  As the conflict of World War I spread throughout Europe in 1914, she became more vocal and active in her work for peace, working with Jane Addams and Alice Hamilton.  Emily asked Wellesley to extend her leave so that she could continue her work for peace, and Wellesley not only declined to extend her leave but choose to terminate her contract instead.

Undaunted – well, daunted but undeterred, she took an editorial job with the Nation and continued to write books analyzing economic and social conditions and advocating for peace.  She was active with the International Congress of Women and helped to cofound the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. She remained active within the women’s peace movement throughout her life.

Her Nobel Prize acceptance speech is titled: Toward Human Unity or Beyond Nationalism. If you are of a mind, you can read it at http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1946/balch-lecture.html.

It is worth the read.  Here are the last few paragraphs:

I have spoken against fear as a basis for peace. What we ought to fear, especially we Americans, is not that someone may drop atomic bombs on us but that we may allow a world situation to develop in which ordinarily reasonable and humane men, acting as our representatives, may use such weapons in our name. We ought to be resolved beforehand that no provocation, no temptation shall induce us to resort to the last dreadful alternative of war.

May no young man ever again be faced with the choice between violating his conscience by cooperating in competitive mass slaughter or separating himself from those who, endeavoring to serve liberty, democracy, humanity, can find no better way than to conscript young men to kill.

As the world community develops in peace, it will open up great untapped reservoirs in human nature. Like a spring released from pressure would be the response of a generation of young men and women growing up in an atmosphere of friendliness and security, in a world demanding their service, offering them comradeship, calling to all adventurous and forward reaching natures.

We are not asked to subscribe to any utopia or to believe in a perfect world just around the comer. We are asked to be patient with necessarily slow and groping advance on the road forward, and to be ready for each step ahead as it becomes practicable. We are asked to equip ourselves with courage, hope, readiness for hard work, and to cherish large and generous ideals.

 

Shortly before she died, Nobel Peace Laureate Emily Greene Balch wrote a poem she addressed to the “Dear People of China.” The last stanza read as follows:

Let us be patient with one another,

And even patient with ourselves.

We have a long, long way to go.

So let us hasten along the road,

The road of human tenderness and generosity.

Groping, we may find one another’s hands in the dark.

 

Let us all hasten along the road of human tenderness and generosity, groping to find one another’s hands in the dark!  Not a bad way to spend a life, I think!

On Aging and Heaven

On By MaryIn Choices we make, laughter2 Comments

Yesterday MaryLou and I went to a ‘free lunch’ to hear about a program that provides in home services to senior citizens who cannot perform one of basic the activities of daily living (things like bathing, dressing, hygiene, transferring, walking, eating, shopping, cooking, managing medications, or managing finances). Well, it is true, there is no free lunch. It was a sales pitch for a kind of insurance program: you pay them lots of money and they provide a case manager who will see to it that you get the services you need in your home. Or so they promise. As the guy talked, I kept hearing this voice in my head saying, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”

So we left the lunch feeling mopey, and wondering about how we will cope with those days when they come – the days when we can’t manage on our own, those days. Both of us are realistic and pragmatic enough to know that those days will inevitably come. We both have seen each of our four parents weather those days. And we were there for them. But … oops, we forgot to have kids! So, we know we have to figure something out, we need to have a plan, a backup plan, and a couple of contingency plans. At some point we will likely move into a condominium or town house, maybe down the road (way down the road) into an independent living senior community. But that is about as far as we have gotten in our planning. That and to say we – we as a society – we need better options and alternatives for the graying population who are moving ever more steadily into our golden years.

As I pondered the pragmatics, I eventually (OK, fairly quickly) found them too much, and so I retreated to philosophy and stories. And it occurred to me that the long and the short of it is that all that really matters is love and the love that we give and receive. The rest can be dealt with somehow, someway. And then I found myself thinking about how along with the vicissitudes of aging, so many of us fear death that great unknown. And THEN I remembered this story:

There was a 90 year old couple who died in a car crash after having been married nearly 70 years. They had been in relatively good health even the last 15 years mostly due to the wife’s insistence on healthy food, including liberal doses of bran and daily exercise. When they reached the pearly gates, St. Peter took them to the mansion which was to be their heavenly home. It had a beautiful state of the art kitchen, living room with a gianormous wide screen TV, luxurious bedroom, bathroom and spa. They oohed and aahed about their accommodations, and then the man asked St. Peter how much it was going to cost, and St. Peter, said, “this is heaven. It’s all free.”

Out behind the house was a lovely swimming pool and expansive gardens. The man asked St. Peter about the maintenance costs. And St. Peter said, “this is heaven, it is all taken care of for free.”

Then they went back into the house and the man looked in the refrigerator. It was stocked with all of his favorite foods, wines and deserts. The man reluctantly asked St. Peter where the low fat and low cholesterol foods were.

St. Peter laughed and said, “you are in heaven. That is the best part. You can eat as much as you like of whatever you like and you never put on weight and you never get sick. This is heaven.”

Hearing that the old man went into a fit of anger. He threw his hat on the floor and stomped on it shrieking. St. Peter tried to calm him down, and finally asked him what was wrong. The old man looked at his wife and said, “This is all your fault! If it were for your darned bran muffins and low fat yogurt, I could have been here 15 years ago!”

 

And so the story goes. Kind of makes the next life look pretty good. But who knows? There really is no way of knowing what comes next. And yet, we do all have our beliefs and hopes.  Here’s hoping that the best of all our hopes and beliefs do come true. And here’s hoping that when we all get to ‘those days’ the days were life here is a bit more demanding than our abilities, here’s hoping that we are able to find and manage the resources to life with dignity and grace.

Anyone have any plans you are willing to share?

 

On nurturing your dreams

On By MaryIn Choices we make2 Comments

I totally love James Taylor music. Totally. There is just something about the mellowness of his voice, the ease of his guitar playing. It just really mellows me out.

When we are puttering around Cape Cod, somehow I find myself liking him even more – maybe because he has a home on Martha’s Vineyard, an island right off the Cape, so the radio stations always feather his music into their play lists.

So, it did not surprise me at all that as we were thinking about packing to head up to the Cape I had this dream where I was talking to Mr. Taylor. Even in my dream, he was Mr. Taylor, I just couldn’t get ‘James’ out of my mouth. In my dream I was going on and on about how wonderful a musician he is, about how I totally love his music, his lyrics, his voice, his tone, his guitar playing, how easy he makes it look, all of it.  Eventually I took a breath and said to him, “I would give my life to be able to perform like you do.”

In my dream he smiled at me, looked me right in the eyes and said, “I did.”

And I woke up and thought, that’s it! That is just really it. If you want to be amazing at something, at anything, you have to give your life to it.

While some people putter around with this and that, puttering and looking to be comfortable, people like my dream James Taylor give their whole life to their craft, their art, their passion. And they do it hoping that they will succeed, knowing that they may fail, but responding with full open heart to their passion, bringing substance to their dream.

I wish for all of us the courage to live our best dreams!

 

So, tell me friends, what is your best dream? How have you nurtured it today?

On keeping your saw sharp

On By MaryIn Choices we make, sustainabilityLeave a comment

Well it seems that I am obsessed with balance these days. But not really. I just keep finding these stories, and they just seem so right.  This one comes to you from Paul Brian Campbell’s People for Others blog. It really is a wonderful blog to subscribe to – every morning he posts something wonderful. Sometimes a musical interlude, sometimes thoughts and reflections, sometimes a wisdom story that just makes me think.  Go check him out! http://peopleforothers.loyolapress.com/

 

It was the annual lumberjack competition and the final was between an older, experienced lumberjack and a younger, stronger lumberjack. The rule of the competition was quite simply who could fell the most trees in a day was the winner.

The younger lumberjack was full of enthusiasm and went off into the wood and set to work straight away. He worked all through the day and all through the night. As he worked, he could hear the older lumberjack working in another part of the forest and he felt more and more confident with every tree he felled that he would win. At regular intervals throughout the day, the noise of trees being felled coming from the other part of the forest would stop.

The younger lumberjack took heart from this, knowing that this meant the older lumberjack was taking a rest, whereas he could use his superior youth and strength and stamina to keep going. At the end of the competition, the younger lumberjack felt confident he had won. He looked in front of him at the piles of felled trees that were the result of his superhuman effort.

At the medal ceremony, he stood on the podium confident and expecting to be awarded the prize of champion lumberjack. Next to him stood the older lumberjack who looked surprisingly less exhausted than he felt. When the results were read out, he was devastated to hear that the older lumberjack had chopped down significantly more trees than he had. He turned to the older lumber jack and said: “How can this be? I heard you take a rest every hour and I worked continuously through the night. What’s more, I am stronger and fitter than you old man.”

The older lumberjack turned to him and said: “Every hour, I took a break to rest and sharpen my saw.”