On Being a Cathedral Builder

Nowhere to be seen was the construction site or building that was being built but a group of laborers were working on cutting stones in a quarry. A noble enlightened man was passing by the area and wondered what these laborers were working on since he could not see the construction site. Hence, he decided to ask the laborers what they were working on – he approached a certain unmotivated looking laborer and asked:

• What are you doing?
• The stone cutter answered, I am cutting stones; can’t you see?

The enlightened person, still puzzled, went to another laborer and asked him,

• What are you doing?
• I am making my living out of shaping stones, answered the laborer with dejected emotion and look on his face. This guy was sure enough counting hours looking forward to go home.

Again, the enlightened person wanted to try his luck in quenching his thirst to get an answer and approached a laborer who was singing while cutting stones, smile on his face,

• What are you doing? Asked the noble man.
• Oh sir! I am a mason and building a cathedral answered the laborer. He was about to say more when the enlightened person interrupted him and said – aha, I get it now and left. The laborer went back to singing and cutting stones, smile on his face, singing, chiseling away for a cathedral …

Which laborer resonated with you? I am sure you have seen these types of people in your work place – whatever type of trade you are involved in. The cathedral builder is the person that takes his job with purpose, believing in the final result of his work well in advance at the early stage, and looking forward to what he is going to accomplish – even if the final result is years away. The cathedral builder surely sees the forest from the trees … He/she is the one who gets up in the morning and go to work having the cathedral he/she is helping to build in mind – with purpose, and not much about cutting stones.

For my colleagues (and people in the software development industry), how do you answer the following questions:

• When you fix a bug, do you think of removing the error (or the symptom) or do you think of the user who would be using your system without encountering any issues?
• When you build a system, do you think of writing methods, classes, components, frameworks or do you think of the final product being used by a user?
• Is your happiness limited to the time when you implement an excellent algorithm, or do you imagine how a user will be able to benefit in doing his job because of your creative solution?

I can definitely guess what your answers are. Actually, I know what your answer is going to be for each of the questions – you would say ‘I am a cathedral builder’.

P.S: The above story is an old story – as many of other old stories, it could have many different versions by now (check it out on the web).

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