The 3 Bricklayers Story

Edward Stanfield
2 min readMay 17, 2018
Photo by Igor Ovsyannykov

Tripe or Wisdom?

If you don’t know the story, it goes something like this:

“Once there were 3 bricklayers. Each one of them was asked what they were doing.

The first man answered gruffly, ‘I’m laying bricks.’

The second man replied, ‘I’m putting up a wall.’

But the third man said enthusiastically and with pride, ‘I’m building a cathedral’

This story is repeated often in blogs and podcasts that promote life style success.

There’s also real life version (if it actually happened):

President John F. Kennedy was visiting NASA headquarters for the first time, in 1961.

While touring the facility, he introduced himself to a janitor who was mopping the floor and asked him what he did at NASA.

The janitor replied, “I’m helping put a man on the moon!”

The lesson to be learned . . .

Our jobs may seem mundane on the surface, the type of work that could drive most people to despair. But, if we place our work in the proper context and understand how it contributes to a noble cause, the job is rewarding.

Sounds good on the surface. Let’s test it.

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Edward Stanfield
Edward Stanfield

Written by Edward Stanfield

Quora Top Writer, The Ascent,MVP, My Quora Insights, Landing Page Specialist.

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