Building Pipelines

Once upon a time there lived two ambitious men called Anwar and Abdullah in a Penang village. They wanted to be the richest men in the nation.

One day they got their big break after months of lobbying. The village chief gave them a contract to carry water in buckets from a nearby river to storage tank for the usage of the villagers. Both were overjoyed and started to work immediately. At the end of the day they were dead tired. That prompted Anwar to do some serious thinking to provide a better solution to transport the water. The next day he was excited to tell his friend about his new idea. Instead on lunging back and forth, they can build a pipeline from the river to the village. Abdullah was skeptical as it sounded new and there were no short term benefits. He rejected that idea outright and was happy with whatever he was earning.

Anwar did not give up and worked on building the pipeline during the evenings and weekends. He kept on reminding himself that “Tomorrow’s dreams are built on today’s sacrifices” and “Short-term pain equals long-term gains”.
Hours turned into days, days turned into months and months turned into years. Finally the project was completed. The pipeline transported water non stop to the village. The pipeline isn’t the end of a dream. It is only the beginning! He started to use the same system and build pipelines all over the world.

After his retirement he still has millions coming in from his pipelines. He continued to share the pipeline idea to many people. A few would jump at the opportunity but most would dismiss it with excuses like “I don’t have the time”, “My friend tried this and failed”, “I’ve done this all my life and would like to stick on with it”, “I know some people who lost money in this, I don’t want to take the risk”.

So are you “A BUCKET CARRIER” or “A PIPELINE BUILDER”?