I was 12 years old, I didn’t get it then, but I sure get it now.
“When I was 12, I was on a job site with dad.
We had to carry 4, 80# buckets of glue about 100 yards to the truck.
‘Why don’t we just drive the truck to the buckets, dad?’
‘The only reason we’ve made it in this life is because I’ve always been willing to carry the buckets.’”
-Ray Zingler on X
I remember it like it was yesterday.
We were at an office building complex in Atlanta.
There sat those big ass buckets of adhesive and the work truck was about 100 yards away.
Surely because it was a straight shot with road access from the truck to the site, we were just going to walk down, get the vehicle, and then load up our left-over supplies, but this isn’t what we did.
“You ready, son?”
“Huh?”
He picked up his two buckets and that was my cue to pick-up mine.
“What the hell are we doing, this is stupid.” I was likely thinking in my head.
As we got halfway to the truck I was probably bitching and complaining about my hands hurting and my forearms being sore, but dad probably just smiled.
Finally, we got to the truck, load the buckets up and I ask him:
“Dad, why didn’t we just drive the truck straight to the buckets, it would have been much easier and faster.”
“Son, the only reason we’ve made it in this life is because I have always been willing to carry the buckets.”
I smirked at him and thought, “what an idiot.”
It’s been over 20 years since that day and the lesson I did not have the maturity to understand at the time has been one of the most lasting, valuable lessons I have ever learned in my life.
There is not a single takeaway I took from school, sports, or anything that will carry the weight that the lesson provided me in that office complex parking lot.
I laugh at it now, as “dumb” as I thought dad was for having us carry those buckets, here I am every day of my life carrying a variety of implements on purpose to get the “training effect” dad got me that day.
In all honesty, the lesson was never about the weight, the buckets, or where the truck was.
The lesson was simple:
Do hard things.
Hard things that most are unwilling to do (especially those uppity folks in their luxury sedans who were smirking at us on that sunny fall day).
Hard things will pay you.
Mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
Thanks Dad, it is because of you, I will always carry the buckets.
