A friend of mine has recently passed me on a book called “Chop Wood, Carry Water” by Joshua Medcalf. It has been a refreshingly simple tale of one boy’s journey to achieve his lifelong goal of becoming a samurai warrior.
While I’m only a couple of chapters in one of the overall themes that really resonates with me is the idea of “Chop Wood, Carry Water”.
Let me explain-
Everyone wants to be great until it’s time to do what greatness requires. I interpret this as everyone wants to be strong and healthy until it’s time to do what strong and healthy requires.
Our greatest challenge is consistently keeping our focus on the process while surrendering the outcome. The problem with focusing on the small menial day-to-day is that it isn’t sexy, and it’s often repetitively boring.
The samurai master says ” In the West, you want everything instantly, but here you must learn to fall in love with the process of becoming great. Now go chop wood, and carry water”
The core message I would like you to get from the book is that being strong and healthy isn’t sexy. It’s not a single task you must do once. A box you can tick.
Becoming strong and healthy is achieved by doing boring tasks, repeatedly, over a long period of time. Hence, chop wood, carry water. For some Chop Wood, Carry Water might mean waking up at 5 am to get to the gym. For others, it might be making a meal plan on Sunday for the week. For third it could be reading 5 pages every day etc.
Is it sexy to chop wood, carry water every single day?
Nope.
Can you achieve your goals without doing it?
Hell no!
Fall in love with the process. Learn to love chopping wood and carrying water
