Mount Vernon High School

May 9, 2025 Keep Chipping Away Early in the year 1960, a man named Dashrath Manjhi, a field worker living in a remote area of eastern India, made a bold decision. His village sat just behind a mountain ridge that made access to the area almost impossible. That ridge delayed medical help when his wife was tragically injured and eventually died the previous year. Her unfortunate but in Manjhi’s mind preventable death motivated him to carve a path through that mountain, to provide easier access to the village and to spare future residents a similar fate. Equipped only with a hammer and a chisel, Dashrath Manjhi got to work chipping away small chunks of that mountain, one handful at a time. “When I started hammering the hill, people called me a lunatic,” he later recalled, “but that steeled my resolve.” Every day Manjhi persisted. For 22 years, he persisted. Finally, in 1982, the path he cut - 360 feet long, 30 feet wide, and in places as much as 25 feet deep - was completed. Manjhi’s manual effort reduced the travel distance to the nearest town from 34 miles to less than 10 miles, and he was celebrated as a national icon for his achievement. Official government roads were laid, over the path he created, shortly after his death in 2007. There are some important lessons we can learn from Dashrath Manjhi’s commitment to carving out his path to success. Each of us, of course, have our own big, important things we dream about doing - paths to success we’re working to carve out for ourselves. But the lessons we can learn today aren’t about the dream where achievement begins, and they’re not about the destination where it ends. The lessons are available in the space between. So let’s forget about Manjhi’s decision to start, the initial opinions of others, or even those first few years of impassioned labor in memory of his wife. And let’s forget the end, too, when it became evident that he’d finish the job and achieve his goal. Let’s forget the final swing of that hammer, the recognition and acknowledgement that rightfully followed, or the lasting impact of his work that still resonates here today. Let’s focus instead on the middle of the “Mountain Man’s” journey. Let’s stop and consider what it must have felt like to show up and put in the work on some day in the middle of year eight or nine or ten, when he was so far from the beginning that people had long ago stopped caring or even criticizing, and so far from the end that people weren’t yet cheering. Consider what it must have felt like to stand there alone, so far from where you started and so far removed from the motivation that came with it, and yet so far from the end that you have to wonder whether you’ll ever get there, or whether this dream was even worth chasing to begin with. That’s a tough spot to be, but it’s one I bet many of us can relate to. That’s because for any of us who are pursuing something big and important, that's where we spend the majority of our time - in the middle - a long way from the bold decision to begin and a long way from the payoff at the end. Maybe that’s how it feels in your job, in your athletic career, in your relationships…in your life. If you’re there today, I don't want you to be discouraged. I want you to learn from Dashrath Manjhi. I want you to recognize and appreciate the power of the process at work, the compounding effect of effort over time, and the value of a simple commitment: to keep showing up and keep chipping away. The truth is, there is no shortcut or cheat code when it comes to carving out your own path to success. Carving that path requires you to show up and do the work. It requires you to recognize that today matters, and to take advantage of the opportunity you've been given to move just a little closer to your desired destination. If you find yourself in the middle today - a long way from the first steps you took on this journey and a long way from the payoff at the end - I want to challenge and encourage you to do what champions do. Do what Dashrath Manjhi did. Recognize and appreciate the power of the process at work. Embrace the compounding effect of effort over time. Keep showing up, and keep chipping away. It's the only way to get where you say you want to go. -Travis