Make a Difference: Start with You

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There was a question asked one day that stated, “If you had only one day to change the world and make a difference, what would you do?”  It didn’t take me long to ponder the question asked and ultimately led me to a very important and crucial decision; start with yourself.  Someone once said, ‘if you had only four hours to chop down a tree with a dull axe what would you do?’  The answer was, ‘spend three hours sharpening the axe and one hour chopping the tree down’.  

This is a very interesting moral because what this means is if you spend more time sharpening your tools, you’ll need less time changing your situation.  Now what are the “tools” that need to be sharpened in order to change an environment?  First and foremost change has to begin and end with you.  Like the saying goes ‘lead by example’ this is the very same situation.  In the past where I have had to be led by someone else, I can attest that someone who tells me to do something while not doing it themselves will get far more resistance than someone who asks me to do something that they have already done or is in the process of already doing themselves.

In conclusion, if you are trying to change the world, you must first begin with yourself.  The singer Michael Jackson made a powerful song called ‘Man in the Mirror’   about making a difference in people’s lives by first starting with your own.   So if I had one day to make a difference, I would spend 90% of my time sharpening myself.