Nathan

“In a recent report, one of ten college graduates (graduates!) thought Judge Judy was on the Supreme Court.13 Intelligence?”
― M.J. DeMarco, UNSCRIPTED: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Entrepreneurship

“There once lived an old man who had a wish. He prayed to God that before he died he would get the chance to see the difference between heaven and hell. One night an angel appeared before the old man’s bed and granted his wish. The angel blindfolded the man and spoke: “First you shall see hell.”
The old man felt a momentary weightlessness and then the angel removed the blindfold. The old man found himself standing in a boundless dining hall filled with large, rounded tables, ornate with gold. Each table was piled high with the most delicious of foods: fruits, vegetables, breads, cheeses, meats, desserts—everything you can imagine was there and exquisitely prepared. The man salivated at the sight as the intoxicating aromas filled his nose.
However, the old man noticed everyone seated at the dining tables was sickly with gaunt, morose faces seared with frustration. Each diner held a long spoon. These spoons must have been over three feet long. While the people cursed to hell could reach with their spoons any delectable food they wanted, they could not get the food into their mouths. The hell-dwellers were in a constant state of torment, starved and desperate to taste what was just inches away. Sickened, the old man cried, “Please stop—take me to heaven!”
And so the man was blindfolded again. “Now you will see heaven,” the angel said. After a familiar weightlessness, the blindfold was removed. The old man was confused. It was like he never left. He was once again in a great dining hall with the same round tables piled high with the same culinary lavishness. And just like hell, he saw these people also had long spoons preventing them from feeding themselves.
However, as the old man looked closer, he noticed that the people in this dining hall were plumply vivacious and smiling; laughter and cheer filled the air. As he panned through the hall and processed the joyous sounds, the difference between heaven and hell finally struck him: The people in heaven were using those long spoons to feed each other.”
― M.J. DeMarco, UNSCRIPTED: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Entrepreneurship

“The Japanese story “Ten Jugs of Wine” exemplifies the difference between just being together on a team and working together as a real team. In the tale, ten old men decide to celebrate the New Year with a big crock of hot sake. Since none of them can provide for all, they each agree to bring one jug of wine for the large heating bowl. On the way to his wine cellar, each old man thinks, “My wine is too valuable to share! No one will know. It’ll never show. It’ll still be fine. I’ll bring a jug of water instead of the wine.” And so when they gather with the jugs they brought, all ten men pour the contents of their jugs ceremoniously into the big bowl and then look sheepishly at one another as they heat and pour hot water for all.”
― Jim Afremow, The Champion's Mind: How Great Athletes Think, Train, and Thrive

“Men in history, men in the world of to-day, are bugs, are spawn, and are called “the mass” and “the herd.” In a century, in a millennium, one or two men; that is to say, one or two approximations to the right state of every man. All the rest behold in the hero or the poet their own green and crude being,—ripened; yes, and are content to be less, so that may attain to its full stature. What a testimony, full of grandeur, full of pity, is borne to the demands of his own nature, by the poor clansman, the poor partisan, who rejoices in the glory of his chief! The poor and the low find some amends to their immense moral capacity, for their acquiescence in a political and social inferiority. They are content to be brushed like flies from the path of a great person, so that justice shall be done by him to that common nature which it is the dearest desire of all to see enlarged and glorified. They sun themselves in the great man’s light, and feel it to be their own element. They cast the dignity of man from their downtrod selves upon the shoulders of a hero, and will perish to add one drop of blood to make that great heart beat, those giant sinews combat and conquer. He lives for us, and we live in him.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance and Other Essays