Success vs. Joy
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Chip Away What is Not Joy
The road to excellence is paved with joy, not with targets and numerical standards. I had no ambition as a 13-year-old and have no ambition today at 43.
I had no goals then and I have no goals tantalizingly pulling me 30 years later.
The one definitive realization that I had back then was an unquenchable desire to be on the billiards table – day and night if it was possible. All else was not joy.
The 15th century Italian genius Buonarroti Michelangelo had not celebrated his 24th birthday when he carved the historic ‘Pieta’, depicting a seated Madonna holding the body of Jesus Christ in her arms. Every muscle and nerve was sculpted to perfection in this amazing work of art. Michelangelo was asked how he could create a ‘Pieta’ out of a single block of marble. “Simple,” he replied, “I chip away everything that’s not Pieta…”