Abraham Lincoln's definition of Creative work

This is a nice fact that it is not important what we do. Sometimes, it is only important how best we can do a job (of course the job should not be something like robbery or violence and terrorism, it should be legal, moral and spiritually justified). In engineering terms, we can say, it is not the quantity of the job we do that is important, but the quality of the job which is important.

In India and probably in many other countries, still we have a bad practice, we always make a mistake thinking that ‘Profession-A’ is the best thing to do, and ‘Profession-B’ is not. If all the people of India or any other country, for example, are only software engineers (as the girls prefer their spouses to be), a computer can’t build a house, a computer can’t make a flight, a computer can’t produce food, and a computer alone can’t cure any ailments. Of course a computer can assist in doing such things that is all. Then there are Civil engineers, Mechanical engineers, Chemical Engineers, Farmers, Industrial labor, Doctors, Pharmacists, Teachers, Administrators and many others in our country who do their part in completion of these things.

All professions are equally important, so are all the people, and all need to work hard for the sake of their own countries and for the sake of making this world a better place to live together.

So, one such example about the quality of work is presented by an event from the life of Great President of USA, Mr. Abraham Lincoln.

To remind ourselves, “Great people always look at the way we do the things and not just at the Great things". So by engaging ourselves reading these kinds of inspirational and thought provoking words from great people, some day, we could become great in our life.”

The real life example from Abraham Lincoln’s life is as follows:

On the first day, as President Abraham Lincoln entered to give his inaugural address, just in the middle, one man stood up. He was a rich aristocrat. He said, “Mr. Lincoln, you should not forget that your father used to make shoes for my family”. And the whole Senate laughed; they thought they had made a fool of Abraham Lincoln.

But Lincoln – and that type of people are made of a totally different mettle. Lincoln looked at the man and said, “Sir, I know that my father used to make shoes in your house for your family, and there will be many others here because the way he made shoes; nobody else can. He was a creator. His shoes were not just shoes, he poured his whole soul in it. I want to ask you, have you any complaint? Because I know how to make shoes myself; if you have any complaint I can make another pair of shoes. But as far as I know, nobody has ever complained about my father’s shoes. He was a genius, a great creator and I am proud of my father”.

The whole Senate was struck dumb. They could not understand what kind of man Abraham Lincoln was. He had made shoe making an art, a creativity. And he was proud because his father did the job so well that not even a single complaint had ever been heard.

It does not matter what you do. What matters is how you do it – of our own accord, with your own vision, with your own love. Then whatever you touch becomes gold.