Total Commitment
A man went to see an old friend, a craftsman of many years. Whenever life became difficult, he found himself returning to the old man's workshop.
“I've lost my biggest client,” he said. “I don't know what I'm going to do. Everything I've worked for feels like it's falling apart.”
The old man was working on a table.
It was an unusual table. Instead of four legs, it had six.
The craftsman looked up.
“Are you okay?”
“I don't know,” the man replied. “I can't stop thinking about what I've lost.”
The old man returned to his work.
After a moment he asked, “Have you spoken to your family?”
“Yes. My wife thinks losing the client might even turn out to be a good thing.”
The old man smiled.
“Does she?”
“She says I was always complaining about them. They took up too much of my time.”
The old man ran his hand across the table.
“Perhaps.”
The man waited for him to say more.
He didn't.
Eventually the man asked, “What do you think I should do?”
Instead of answering, the old man said, “Help me with this table.”
The old man moved the table onto the uneven floor.
“Which leg is the problem?” he asked.
“That one,” said the man, pointing to the leg that no longer touched the ground properly.
“Are you sure?”
The man looked at it again.
They moved the table to another surface.
“It's fine over here,” said the man.
“Yes.”
The man looked at the ground.
“So there's nothing wrong with the leg.”
“Perhaps.”
The old man smiled.
The old man said, “The legs form the foundation and stability for the table. What should I do if one leg is not right?”
“Fix it,” the man said.
“How should I do that?” the old man said.
“Find out the problem and solve it,” the man said.
“OK, let's do that,” the old man said. “First let's take a look at the balance of the table and determine the problem.”
They moved the table to a flat surface and determined that the table did not wobble and was sturdy. So on a good steady foundation the table, and life, was good. On a dirt uneven surface the table was unstable and wobbled. One leg became shorter than the others and put the table out of balance.
The old man said, “You have the same problem. When life is good everything is in balance, but on uneven ground you are unstable and wobble, focusing on the leg, not the ground.”
“Some may try to shave a little off the opposite leg to make it even and more stable, but when you move the table back to the flat even surface now the table is again uneven and unbalanced.”
“The six legs represent the six necessary conditions of life. They are equally as important as each other and impact your life the same. Without your health, your life is out of balance. Plenty of people have money and no time, or plenty of time and no money. Without an opportunity to learn, you feel stuck with no way out, and without faith in your future, you have despair.”
Health.
Time.
Family.
Learning.
Financial.
Spiritual.
“Right now your Financial leg is uneven.”
“So what do I do?” said the man.
“You could move the table,” the old man said.
“What does that mean?” said the man.
After a while, the man looked more carefully at the table.
He noticed that the other five legs were still holding it up.
The table wasn't as steady as it had been, but it hadn't collapsed.
The old man asked, “Is your family okay?”
“My family is okay,” he said.
The old man continued working.
The old man asked, “Are you healthy?”
“And I'm healthy,” said the man.
Silence.
“I suppose I have more time now that I'm not doing all that work for the client.”
The old man looked up.
The man continued.
“I don't actually know how much money I was making from them once I count all the hours they took. I should probably work that out.”
The old man nodded.
“And perhaps there's something I could learn about finding better clients.”
He paused.
Then he laughed quietly.
“My wife might be right.”
The old man raised an eyebrow.
“Perhaps.”
The man smiled.
“That's not very helpful.”
“Perhaps.”
They both laughed.
Then the man became serious again.
“I still don't know what I'm going to do.”
The old man returned to his work.
“Do you need to know tonight?”
“No.”
The old man put down his tools.
“Sometimes the best decisions are made after sleeping on them.”
The next morning, the man's financial problem was still there.
Nothing had been magically fixed.
But something was different.
It was no longer the only thing he could see.
He still had his health.
He had people who cared about him.
He had time he hadn't had before.
There were things he could learn.
He had experience, knowledge and resources he hadn't considered while he was frightened.
And with a little distance, he could begin to see possibilities where the night before he had seen only a problem.
He finally understood the old man's table.
The other five legs couldn't replace the damaged one.
But they could help support the table while he worked out what to do.
And perhaps, with their support, he could build something stronger.