If You Are Tired, Take A Rest But Don’t Quit.

Guts to succeed are embedded within you, you just need to recognize them.

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” ~ Abraham Lincoln

There are several ways to achieve success in your life. You must think of a combination of hard work and smart work. The difference between hard work and smart work is how a goal is achieved. Hard work means spending long hours to complete a job without any shortcuts. Smart work achieves the same results but with advanced planning, thinking creatively, and doing the same job with less effort.

It cannot be denied that people must work hard to create great achievements. However, if they work intelligently, they can do the same amount of work more quickly and efficiently.

Once upon a time, there were two woodcutters named Charles and John. Both of them were from the same town. They were often at loggerheads over who chopped more wood. So one beautiful morning, they decided to hold a wood-cutting competition to determine the winner between them. The rules of the competition were pretty simple — whoever produces the most wood in a day wins.

They moved towards woodland nearby, both of them took up their positions in the jungle and started cutting away trees at their fastest possible speed. Chop, chop, chop… The sound of axes hitting wood echoed throughout the forest, and both contestants matched the opponent stroke for stroke.

This lasted for an hour and all of sudden, Charles stopped. When John noticed that there was no chopping sound from Charles’s side, he thought: “Ah Ha!!! Charles must be tired already!” And he continued to chop down his trees with double motivation and pace.

A quarter of an hour passed, and John heard his opponent chopping again. After this both Charles and John carried on synchronously. John was starting to feel exhausted and the chopping from Charles stopped once again.

Feeling motivated and sensing victory close by, John continued on, with a huge smile on his face. But after 15 minutes, John could hear the chopping sound again from Charles's end. John brought him all his energy together and kept cutting the trees to go ahead with the competition.

This went on the whole day. Every hour, Charles would stop chopping the wood for fifteen minutes while John kept going persistently. So in the evening when the competition ended, John was totally confident that he would take the triumph.

But to John’s surprise, Charles had actually chopped down more wood. With a disappointing face, John asked, “How did this even happen? How could you have cut down more trees than me? You worked for less time than me. I heard you stop working every hour for fifteen minutes!”

Charles smiled and replied, “Well John, it’s in fact very simple. Every time I stopped work, while you were still chopping down trees, I was sharpening my axe.”

In today’s competitive environment everybody everywhere seems to be busy. Most people are just too busy doing and trying to achieve success like John; they do not have the spare essential time required to enhance their knowledge and renew themselves, to learn and grow- to sharpen the “axe”.

To meet targets and deadlines, we work hard continuously amidst the overwhelming tasks at hand. We feel exhausted, and drained, and our productivity declines. Do you simply take a break, relax and rest? Well, that's okay, but that isn’t sharpening the axe. Giving a pause for a few minutes is just putting the axe down. The blade of axe will still be blunt even after your break is over. Yes, we need to rest, we must also sharpen our axe’s blade, i.e. learn new techniques, and recollect strength and stamina. Ensuring to sharpen our axe only we will become more productive.

Thanks for reading Shameem Anwar and your valuable time!

I dedicate this story to my readers as a piece of kind advice as I learn a lot of things from them too!

I love you and your wonderful works which make me a better human being!!!

Dr. Preeti Singh Hollie Petit, Ph.D. Dr. Fatima Imam Pene Hodge Pam Winter Freda Savahl Thief Mahein Kazi B.R. Shenoy Trista Signe Ainsworth Neera Handa Dr Neera Mahajan Gurpreet Dhariwal Ali Nandkishor Shingne Mukundarajan V N Sahil Patel Noorain Ali Mulan MN William J Spirdione Lanu Pitan Yana Bostongirl Toya Qualls-Barnette Katie Michaelson Emma Colsey-Nicholls Josephine Crispin Evon The Sober Vegan Yogi Sara Burdick Jill (Conquering Cognitions) Diana Meresc Maria Rattray Annelise Lords Thesilkroads Uwem Daniels Boateng Sekyere Mary V Bassey BY Julie Gaeta Donnette Anglin Kristina God Liberty Forrest, Author Jason Edmunds Ali Hall Jenine Bsharah Baines Esther George JoAnn Ryan Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles Barb Dalton 🇺🇦 Lisa Osborne Arbab Z. Noorain Ali Judy Derby Barb Dalton 🇺🇦 Adrienne Beaumont William J Spirdione Jan Sebastian Orla K. Denise Larkin Lucia Landini A.H. Mehr Ankit Priyadarshi Amanda Laughtland Victoria Gregg Fasiha Imran Alberto García 🚀🚀🚀 Carmellita Nicole Hilbig Omy Jeofrey Ogire Myriam Ben Salem🦋 Krishna V Chaudhary Minakshi Kumari Umme Salma Fiza Ameen Sally Prag Bassey BY Danielle Hestand