Column: Masterpiece Grads

by Woody

New Grads, Create A Masterpiece Day (And Repeat)

Dear Class of 2015, I am honored to have been invited (albeit by myself) to address you here today.

Michelangelo, when asked how he had created one of his masterpiece sculptures, replied simply: “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”1angel

Creating your own masterpiece life, dear graduates, as you journey forward requires a similar process: You must see the angel – your passion – and then set it free.

For Michelangelo, this meant chipping away the pieces of marble that did not look like the angel or the horse or David. In our lives, this means chipping away the distractions and challenges and even the negative people who are preventing us from achieving our dreams.

In addition to being sculptors, you are also painters who create your masterpiece by adding brushstokes of color to the canvas. In other words, by adding determination and patience and love, to name just three key hues.

For good reason my dear mentor John Wooden advised focusing on creating your masterpiece day and not your masterpiece life. A masterpiece sculpture is created one chisel strike at a time; a masterpiece painting one brushstroke at a time; a masterpiece novel one keystroke at a time. So is a masterpiece life – private and professional – created one masterful day at a time, one after another, until they add up to masterpiece weeks, months, years.

To focus on a masterpiece life, or even a masterpiece year, is too daunting. Better to keep in mind this additional wisdom from Coach Wooden: “Little things add up to big things.”

A parable about a starfish emphasizes the big power of little acts. It was a beautiful Southern California morning and a beachcomber was walking along the sand that was littered with kelp and driftwood from a violent storm the night before. In the distance he noticed a man bend down to pick something up and then toss it into the ocean.

Every few steps, the man repeated this calisthenic: stop, bend, stand, toss. But what was he throwing, the beachcomber wondered: Driftwood sticks? Broken seashells? Skipping stones?

As the two morning walkers neared each other, the beachcomber finally realized the man was picking up starfish that, by the hundreds, had been washed ashore by the violent storm’s high surf and left stranded.

The beachcomber could not help but laugh at the other man’s futile efforts. “You’re just wasting your time,” he said. “There are too far many starfish for you to make a difference before they die.”1gradpic

“Maybe,” the man replied as he gently tossed another starfish into the waves. “But to this one I’m making a world of difference.”

As you venture out into the world, Class of 2015, keep an eye out for “starfish” who need your help.

Before closing, I would like to share a passage near the end of Ray Bradbury’s classic novel, Fahrenheit 451: “Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there.”

These words remind me of a poem by my grandfather Ansel, handwritten on the title page of his medical college textbook Modern Surgery and dated Oct. 1, 1919, less than a year before Bradbury was born:

“The worker dies, but the work lives on / Whether a picture, a book, or a clock

“Ticking the minutes of life away / For another worker in metal or rock

“My work is with children and women and men / Not iron, not brass, not wood

“And I hope when I lay my stethoscope down / That my Chief will call it good.”

By finding your passion and work that you want to live on, dear graduates, and by creating your masterpiece day, over and again, in the end your Chief will call it good.

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

Wooden-&-Me-cover-mock-upCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”