How to get an extra-ordinary life
One winter’s day, Bob and Sally, ordinary townsfolk without much ambition, purchased a modest farm. Rumors spread that they had received an inheritance and had spent the funds to try their hands at farming.
As the winter turned to spring and the land thawed, Bob went to work in a peculiar fashion. Day after day, he steadfastly erected wooden-post fences that divided the farmland into three distinct plots. Once the fencing was finally complete, Bob seeded and cultivated a crop in one section.
Neighbors watched with curiosity, but nobody approached Bob and Sally.
This bizarre farming routine continued for several years, and somehow Bob and Sally managed to survive on a third of the available land. Bob finished working at four thirty p.m. each day, keeping to a schedule he had known from his former job in town. Forty hours a week was more than enough work for Bob.
Finally an elderly neighbor, after watching for years from his farmhouse atop the hill, decided he needed to know what the heck was going on. Why was this crazy man farming only a third of his land?
He traipsed across the fields and met Bob, who was idling on his porch.
“I can’t take it one second longer,” the neighbor exclaimed, out of breath from the walk. “My curiosity is eating me alive. Why aren’t you working all day like the rest of us?”
“I’m done working for the day. I finished my farming at four thirty.”
The neighbor choked aloud. “Okay, let me ask you this: Why did you separate your farmland into three sections and use only one of these sections?”
“So that’s what this is all about.” Bob grinned. “Why didn’t you say so from the start? You sit down, old timer, and I’ll be glad to share my secrets.”
The neighbor sighed and eased into a rocking chair beside Bob.
“You work your life away, but I want a balanced life,” Bob said. “And because I want balance, I divided my farmland into three equal sections.”
“How does this give you balance?” the neighbor prodded.
Bob winked at him. “I bet you never knew that each section is labeled.”
The neighbor’s eyebrows furrowed, and he turned his head to examine the three sections. From this porch view, he could see that the plots were labeled “O,” “E,” and “G.”
“Well, I’ll be a son-of-a—”
“I know what you’re thinking,” Bob said. “It’s pure genius, ain’t it?”
“Well, uh, what the heck do the letters stand for?”
Bob stood as he proudly examined the farm. “The O stands for ordinary. If I stay within that plot of land, I get an ordinary life without too much work.”
The neighbor’s mouth fell open in incredulity. “And that’s why you cultivate a third of your land each year?” he asked in a gasp.
“Damn right!” Bob said. “That plot labeled ‘O,’ it keeps me and Sally alive. It requires forty hours a week, and I can sit here while you work overtime.”
The neighbor was stunned. “What the heck does the E stand for?”
“The E stands for extra-ordinary,” Bob said, tapping his temple with a finger. “I keep out of that plot. It’s above and beyond an ordinary workload. It’s the extra work for extra money that uses a lot of extra time.”
“But it’s a full third of your acreage!” the neighbor said.
“Use your own land however you want, old timer. The extraordinary plot is no place for me. In my opinion, it’s for the greedy without real priorities.”
“How does a person with real priorities spend this time?”
“I reckon I can’t always be sure.”
The elderly neighbor groaned. “Okay, then—what’s the G stand for?”
“That’s my gerbil field,” Bob said.
“Your gerbil field?” the old man shrieked. “What the heck is that?”
“It’s where I go to escape,” Bob said, as if his neighbor were an idiot. “I don’t mind stepping into that land ’cause nobody tells me what to do. I can be the most mindless critter on the planet. I never stop moving, don’t think much, and use up my time. It’s the best place to go to forget my money worries.”
“And so the point of it all?” the neighbor asked, stupefied.
“To keep my life in balance with an ordinary workload for survival income, while protecting my free time against extra work or extra demands, and then distracting myself with gerbil activity to avoid my persistent money worries.”
The old neighbor rubbed his chin. “You know what I think the point is?”
“What’s that?” snickered Bob.
“I think it’s easier to work a little harder so you can worry a little less. And then you won’t need to be spending your free time like a brainless rodent!”
It’s a ludicrous tale, of course, but it subtly reminds us that the seeds of all future achievement are the hours planted in passing days.
If we plant only in the ordinary plot of a forty-hour workweek, we can expect to reap an ordinary harvest in our years. But if we plant in the ordinary plot and in the extraordinary plot—using the many free hours we have available each week—we give ourselves the best chance to reap an extraordinary crop in our lifetimes.
We pay the price for an extraordinary life, or we pay the regrets of an average life. An extraordinary life requires a sacrifice of our leisure hours, but an ordinary life requires a sacrifice of our cherished dreams. It depends on what is most wanted in the garden.