The Moral Vision
Working One’s Way Up
~ 229 ~
WORKING ONE’S WAY UP
A man entered a certain recruiting office and said,
“I want to join as a soldier.”
“But how old are you?” the sergeant asked.
“Sixty,” was the man’s reply
“You know quite well that sixty is too old for you to
become a soldier.”
“All right, if 60 is too old for a soldier, don’t you
need any generals?”
If one wants to start one’s career as a general, one
will be hard put to it to do so. It’s just like a race
where one can’t leap straight from the starting point
to the finishing line. To succeed in anything, we
have to be like the tree, starting from the seed,
growing slowly and putting out branches, twigs,
leaves and flowers when the appropriate times
come around. Similarly, business starts with
investing money, not with earning profits. The
construction of a house starts with the laying of the
foundation, not with the tiling of the roof. The
