There's a story, perhaps legend, about Michelangelo - the famous Italian Renaissance painter and sculptor…and much more. Apparently, someone asked Michelangelo how he carved such a magnificent statue of David out of a block of marble.

 

Michelangelo said something like, "I could see David in the marble block and I uncovered him by removing the pieces of marble that didn't belong".

 

This story about Michelangelo 'gets me thinking'.

 

Certainly, Michelangelo did David a great favour...releasing him from the marble block and allowing him to be seen and enjoyed by millions of people for at least hundreds of years.

 

Great teachers face a situation similar to the one Michelangelo faced with his David. Great teachers can see the unique talents embedded in people. Because they are great, great teachers are able to help people chip away the pieces of stuff that covers and sometimes buries the unique talents and skills.

 

To some degree, most of us try to teach...

• we try to teach our family members [particularly our children],
• we try to teach our co-workers [particularly, those who report to us], and
• we even try to teach strangers [for example, people who do things like steal 'our' parking spaces].

When we try to teach we should remember:

 

We can help people chip away at their block of marble to help them uncover their ‘hidden Davids’. And, to the extent we desire to do that, wouldn't it be awesome if we had even half the talent and skill of Michelangelo!

 

Michelangelo’s David

Now, I know the famous composer Richard Wagner said, “Joy is not in things; it is in us”.

 

However, at least from time to time…

 

When we want things and don’t get them we are disappointed. When we do ‘hard work’ and the results fall short we are disappointed. When we want things and we get them we are, at least, momentarily satisfied or happy. When we do ‘hard work’ and achieve desired results we feel satisfied or happy. When it comes to work…some of our desires are positive, normal, and healthy in nature and some of our desires are not.

 

According to Eckhart Tolle, all negative desires represent frustrations of positive desires inspired by defeat, failure, and neglect. I’m still thinking on that cause-and-effect way of looking at desires. Sometimes, when we ‘work hard’ and are defeated we wind down a bit...and the work starts to taste sour. Sometimes when we ‘work hard’ and people don’t notice we wind down a bit...and the work tastes sour. Perhaps, after more defeats and more neglect the taste gets so sour we give up. And our attitude towards life sours. Perhaps, that’s how positive intent ends up becoming negative attitude, the breeding ground for negative desires.

 

Regardless of where joy is and how desires become desires there is a piece of ancient wisdom we should keep at the front of our thinking. This wisdom has been described in writing for well over 2000 years.

 

This ancient wisdom is the key to ensuring our work does not put sour tastes in our mouths.

 

There are numerous quotes, capturing this wisdom.

 

I particularly like this one, from ‘The Old Lion’, Theodore Roosevelt:

 

 

I bet most people want to work hard at work worth doing…to ‘make a difference’.

 

If we put our minds and hearts to it then we can create their chance to do just that.