Sharpen Your Axe

There’s an old tale about a tree felling contest. The two contestants were charged with chopping down a large tree, and the contest was to be won or lost based on the time it took to chop the tree down with an axe.

The first contestant was a young man of 24 years, 6’4″, 225lbs of raw muscle. He looked upon his opponent with contempt, as the other contestant shook his hand. The 2nd contestant was a 57 year old man, who was neither daunting nor powerful looking, but old and tired looking.

When the contest started, the young man went wild and fast, hacking away at his huge tree, and making great progress.

The older man worked steadily and slowly, and frequently took 5-10 minute breaks.

After more than 2 hours (these were very large oak trees), the older man hollered out “TIMBERRRRRRR!!!” and his tree feel cleanly in the exact spot he had picked out to land it.

The younger man stood shocked, angry, surprised, and deflated. He couldn’t believe this old timer beat him, especially when he sat resting for so many breaks! How could this happen?!?

The young man humbled himself, shook the older man’s hand and conceded victory. After congratulating him on his win, he asked the old timer, “How did you win? You took 4 breaks by my count, for at least 5 minutes each time?!?”

The old man just smiled, and said, “Son, I wasn’t taking a break. I paused in my work to sharpen my axe. So, while I can’t swing my axe as hard or as fast as you can, my axe is sharper than yours, so my strikes on that tree cut deeper.”

I didn’t make this story up, and I don’t know where I first heard it, but I try to go about life in the same manner as the winner of that tree felling contest.

This week, from Sunday night through Thursday morning, I was sharpening my axe. Not resting, but sharpening.

I spent the last 4+days with 40+ other soldiers from Georgia’s state guard down in Perry Georgia at hashtag#Patriot25. We were digging deep and hard into a simulated major civil emergency: a 7.0 earthquake on the eastern seaboard.

We conducted urban search and rescue, first aid, debris clearing, casualty evacuation, low angle extraction, low light search and rescue, high fidelity medical simulation, and emergency communications.

After each exhausting day was over, we gathered for a cigar and energized our spirits by getting to know each other, celebrating our wins, laughing at our mistakes, assigning new nicknames, and praising those who really stood out among us.

I am blessed to have an employer who trusts me to take such time off, and I am blessed to be a part of an organization that gets invitations to things like Patriot25.

I am completely exhausted, WAY behind on hundreds of emails, but mentally and emotionally refreshed with new skills and confidence.

How do you sharpen your axe?