Shoulder

My working year actually starts today, more or less. It's that time of year when some people finally get down to work, which in my context means that people come looking for me to teach them how to get work done.

It's not that these people are idle, but that they are not fully competent. There is a lot of potential there, and it only needs a little tweaking to bring it out.

Recently, someone asked how you would encourage someone with more talent than yourself. I think you have to do it whole-heartedly. You can't stint on judicious (i.e. critically exact, but erring on the positive side) encouragement.

I've dealt with precocious and high-potential young people all my life. I can't offer them what I am as a goal, because that would be cheating them. I can only offer them what I am as a spur to higher achievement, much as a mountain shoulder can be used as a base camp for an assault on the summit.

I don't envy them, have never envied them. Their world is different from what mine was, and their heirs and successors will find it different again. In that light, there's no point having regrets about the past or casting a jaundiced eye over the future.

What I can bequeath to them however, are the lessons of age: patience, but not too much; cleverness, but not too much; faith, hope and love. Some come to these lessons early, some later. I always pray that the learning of such lessons comes sooner for most.