Lift Where You Stand

I attended a conference on Saturday night and one of the headlining speakers related a prescient anecdote in his earlier life that had a profound impact on me. As the story goes, he was in a church where they were preparing to have a piano concert one evening. However, the piano needed to be moved from a stage to another part of the building which would require them to negotiate a set of stairs. With none of them being professional piano movers, they tried several times unsuccessfully to hoist the instrument in a manner conducive to getting it down the stairs in one piece. For some time, they rotated men around the piano in differing formations to accomplish the feat. To no avail, they could not move the piano. Finally, as they stood tentatively gripping the piano and exasperation set in, an older gentleman made a simple and profound statement: “Lift where you stand.” Heeding his suggestion, they each summoned the strength to move the instrument down the stairs and move it to the proper room.
Often, it’s easier for us to give half measures in life when we don’t feel like we’re being utilized to our fullest potential. “Going through the motions,” is what my dad used to call it. We may feel as though we could give more, but since others don’t recognize our strengths, we may complain or retreat from the situation. Understandably, if we were all able to comprehend everyone’s strengths and weaknesses, we could go about organizing and maximizing everyone’s efforts and no one would be left out; any obstacle could be overcome. But we are human and often fail at utilizing people to the best of their ability.
As we continue to discuss the future of our district and what kind of educated citizens we want to produce, I suggest we take a look at our situations, realize that there is much we can do right here and now and simply lift where we stand. If we can handle our part well, there is no telling what successes we will have as a community in fortifying our school district.