Chop Wood Carry Water by Joshua Medcalf
“If you spend your whole life chasing that fleeting, temporary feeling of happiness, you will miss out on what you really want: fulfilment”
3 Main Messages:
We are all building our own house and each small act contributes to what we build
It is better to work hard and struggle in the dark than under the spotlight later
Mountains are meant to be climbed and life is meant to be lived
What is it about stories? For as long as humans have been able to talk, there have been stories told: whispered around campfires, sung in ballads, written on walls, shouted in sermons, purposed in politics and hidden deep within in children’s books. They entertain us, share hidden agendas and make messages memorable. We sink into them, enjoy them, learn from them and then go on to retell them ourselves.
Chop Wood, Carry Water claims to teach the reader how to “fall in love with the process of becoming great.” What it does is tell multiple stories with some incredibly valuable life lessons within a simple story of John, a young man who is learning to be a Samurai. It is split into bite sized chapters, each with a short story and a lesson to be learned. With my Headteacher hat on, I can see how easily this would translate into a whole term's worth of assembly content - it’s worth buying, reading and using it for this alone!
As the story unfolds, John, who wishes to be a great and talented Samuria, learns little lessons which are relevant in any life. His sensei, Akira, walks alongside him, supporting, and teaching him and sharing his wisdom and insight.
The first lesson, which resonated deeply with me, is that we are all building our own house each day and so we must pay attention and put thought and effort into the smallest of our actions. A later story linked with this by asking how we are choosing fuel our heart - with what we watch, what we read, what we listen to, who we surround ourselves with, how we talk to ourselves and what we visualise. We each have the power, each day to construct our world by paying attention to what we are paying attention to. A valuable lesson indeed!
The concept of chopping wood and carrying water is that we need to put in the hard work, train, build skills, and slowly grow before we are able to share the fruits of our accomplishments. As Medcalf writes: “You do not shine under the bright lights; the bright lights only reveal your work in the dark.” He compares this to the birth of the bamboo plant, which takes 5 years to grow deep and strong roots before it then emerges from below ground and grows at an incredible pace.
There are other powerful messages here:
To compare yourself to your previous self, not to others
To live in the moment and pay attention where your feet are
That nothing is a test, but everything is an opportunity to grow
That your true value is in who you are, not what you do
That greatness is a bunch of small things done really well.
Spoiler alert: John graduates and becomes a great Samuri, but it takes him many, many years to get there. And the lessons he learns along the way are ours to share. It’s a short book that packs a punch; perfect for the length of a flight; physically light but metaphorically heavy - a great read!
