A transformative Short Story

The Boy and the Pencil

A boy was watching his grandmother write a letter. At one point he asked:
'Are you writing a story about what we have done? Is it a story about me?'

His grandmother stopped writing her letter and said to her grandson:
I am writing about you, actually, but more important than the words is the pencil I am using. I hope you will be like this pencil when you grow up.’
Intrigued, the boy looked at the pencil. It did not seem very special.

‘But it's just like any other pencil I have ever seen!’ 

‘That depends on how you look at things. It has five qualities which, if you manage to hang on them, will make you a person who is always at peace with the world.’

‘First quality: you are capable of great things, but you must never forget that there is a hand guiding your steps. We call that hand God, and He always guides us according to His will.’

‘Second quality: now and then, I have to stop writing and use a sharpner. That makes the pencil suffer a little, but afterwards, he is much sharper. So you, too, must learn to bear certain pains and sorrows, because they will make you a better person.

‘Third quality: the pencil always allows us to use an eraser to rub out any mistakes. This means that correcting something we did is not necessarily a bad thing; it helps to keep us on the road to justice.’

‘Fourth quality: what really matters in a pencil is not its wooden exterior, but the graphite inside. So always pay attention to what is happening inside you.’

‘Finally, the pencil’s fifth quality: it always leaves a mark. In just the same way, you should know that everything you do in life will leave a mark, so try to be conscious of that in your every action’

Source:- "Like the Flowing River" by Paulo Coelho

One-thirds of my life

I spend more than one-third of my time in a week working. Most of the people do that, some even much more than half of their time doing their work.

While I have been doing my work, I sometimes start to harbour doubts about the kind of work that I do. There are many instances where the work I am doing is due to the inefficiencies created by the processes downstream and I am adjusting my work to incorporate those inefficiencies. I work in the performance Reporting unit where my work is to make excel & VBA dashboards for the pharmaceutical wholesalers, to help them in their mission of improving healthcare in their communities.

The data team collects the data and because of the inefficiencies in the data collection process, many situations arise which shouldn’t have arrived, if the processes were followed in an ideal manner. If I am not contributing to increasing the knowledge base in the world or improving the quality of the world, does that mean I am not doing enough? My mind thinks in affirmative, questioning my job here.

Is anyone willing to share their experiences if they think on these same lines and what is their idea of a good job?