Making a Difference: Cathedral Thinking

I remember attending a business seminar, there was a man on the podium, very tall and strongly built . He spoke of a concept called “cathedral thinking”, which explains how cathedrals were built (surprise, surprise!). If a king hired an architect, he not only hired the man in question, he hired the man’s son and grandson; because it took three whole generations to build a cathedral! Let me break it down into three steps:

1# The first man clears a field, draws up the plans, excavates boulders (for walls) and plants trees in another field.

2# Second man uses boulders to construct walls and structure in the clear field. He also takes care of the trees planted by his father.

3# Now junior here, gets to cut down grand pappy’s trees, because he needs them for the interior of the cathedral…

And THEN we have a cathedral!!!!

Now, Mr.1# never saw his Cathedral built, all he did was set up so that the next generation could build, and his grandson could design the interior. Not only that, but we can see these cathedrals nine-hundred years later. Why, because some guy decided to make a difference, wasn’t ashamed of it, and thought of the next generation(s).

Now It’s easy to say that our choices don’t influence our followers, (yes, we have followers.) but whether we like it or not, our children and grandchildren might grow up either admiring us or reclining on a psychologist’s lounge complaining about us.

And maybe you grew up without someone to walk ahead of you and plant the trees or quarry for stone, which left you at a major disadvantage, but it’s up to us if we want to make sure that our children never have that disadvantage.

So go on living, knowing that your ceiling will serve as a foundation for the next generation as they head off to the skies, and onto their journeys….