Sharpen Your Life Like You Sharpen A Pencil

There's nothing like writing with a newly sharpened pencil. It has a nice fine point, plenty of lead to work with, and what you write is very legible.

If you happen to go too long without sharpening your pencil, the lead gets dull, wide, and soon, you're rubbing wood on your paper.

So what do you do?  In order to sharpen your pencil, you need to cut away the wood to expose the lead.  Then you need to cut the lead in order to get it to a point.  The pencil works best at it's sharpest.

There's also a trick to sharpening properly.  Not everyone can do it correctly.  Often people end up with broken leads and broken pencils.

Let's move to the application:

• Regular pencils need regular sharpening.
  I'm talking about your basic, yellow-painted, #2 pencil.  It needs to be sharpened in order for it too work properly, even from the beginning.  So do you.  You need to take time to sharpen your skills, sharpen your thinking, sharpen your attitude on a regular basis.
• The best sharpening occurs through cutting something away.
  With a pencil, you need to cut away the wood in order to get to the lead.  In our lives, sharpening isn't always about learning something new.  It is much more about taking away the distractions that get in the way of what we already know to be true.
• Sharpening is only necessary when you use what you've sharpened.
  You don't need to sharpen an unused pencil, unless you're going to use it.  Sharpening is necessary because of use.  If all you do is spend your time sharpening, then you may actually be wasting your resources.
• A sharpened pencil still has an eraser on it.
  Even a perfectly sharpened pencil can make a mistake.  It all depends on who's doing the writing.  Just because you sharpen your skills, it doesn't mean that you're going to be perfect.  All you're doing is putting yourself in a position to be the best you can be.  If you make a mistake, you might simply need to flip things around and start over.
• Sharpened pencils open the door to greater creativity.
  An unsharpened pencil is difficult to work with and creates more of a distraction to the process.  Once a pencil is sharpened, it becomes a tool in the hands of a person and is bound only by the person's creativity.  When we sharpen our lives, we open the door to greater possibilities.  When we take our skills to the next level, we become aware of greater opportunities.
• Unsharpened pencils soon become dull and unusable.
  Have you ever rumaged through a drawer or container of pencils, trying to find the right one?  What are you looking for?  You're looking for the sharpest, the one that will write the best.  All the dull pencils become useless, overlooked, obsolete.  Have you ever felt useless, overlooked, or obsolete?
• This metaphor works with pencils, saws, knives, basically anything that requires sharpening.
  It also works with people who want to remain at the top of their game and continue learning and growing and developing and remaining relevant.
  
  

Comments

[Leanne Magraith]

Hi Tim
I enjoyed this metaphor particularly this part:
"When we sharpen our lives, we open the door to greater possibilities."

BTW I have featured a link to this post on my site, side by side with another post by a different author covering essentially the same topic. The post is called:
Take 2 - How Do You Sharpen Life's Pencil?

You may find the other article an interesting read.

[Davina]

Hi Tim. Dugg!!! My comment there?

"This was Ah-Mazing!"

I liked this line, "Just because you sharpen your skills, it doesn't mean that you're going to be perfect."

[tim]

Very witty Blaine. I think sharp wins over dull most every time.

Tom, you have hit the nail with your head in your comments. I think the church is very, very guilty of busyness. Simplifying and lightening the load will make the church more effective and more credible.

[Tom]

I really liked this post. Most of the people I run across seem to think that taking away, like sharpening a pencil, is the opposite of good leadership. For some reason often times people feel that they are good leaders the more things they take on. In actuality, they need to perhaps let go of some things and sharpen themselves. I see this in the church a lot. If a pastor or directer can offer many different programs then they feel like they are succsesful. This leads to burn out, or in the words of Tim Milburn, "If you happen to go too long without sharpening your pencil, the lead gets dull, wide, and soon, you're rubbing wood on your paper."

[Blaine Collins]

Very useful metaphor. Makes me think of my upbringing. My father's favorite line to me was, "Look alive son; look sharp!" He didn't mean to look pointy, of course, but rather on top of it, ready for the activity of the day.

Dad never used a mechanical pencil sharpener when a pocket knife would do; and he never used a dull razor - better to have a beard for a few hours until a sharp blade could be secured.

The thing about a dull pencil is that it dulls the writer - or maybe the opposite, a sharp pencil acts to sharpen the mind. Either way, you get the point. :)