MAKE THE MOST OF WHAT YOU HAVE

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In 1704, a Scottish sailor named Alexander Selkirk found himself marooned on a deserted island some four hundred miles off the coast of Chile. All he had with him was a rifle, some gunpowder, a knife, and some carpenter’s tools. In exploring the interior, he saw nothing but a bunch of goats, cats, rats, and some unfamiliar animals that made strange noises at night. It was a shelterless environment. He decided to keep to the shoreline, slept in a cave, found enough to eat by catching fish, and slowly gave way to a deep depression. He knew he would run out of gunpowder, his knife would get rusty, and his clothes would rot on his back. He could not survive on just fish. He did not have enough supplies to get by and the loneliness was crushing. If only he had brought over more materials from his ship.

　　Then suddenly the shoreline was invaded by sea lions; it was their mating season. Now he was forced to move inland. There, he could not simply harpoon fish and sit in a cave brooding. He quickly discovered that this dark forest contained everything he needed. He built a series of huts out of the native woods. He cultivated various fruit trees. He taught himself to hunt the goats. He domesticated dozens of feral cats—they protected him against the rats and provided him much needed companionship. He took apart his useless rifle and fashioned tools out of it. Recalling what he learned from his father, who had been a shoemaker, he made his own clothes out of animal hides. It was as if he had suddenly come to life and his depression disappeared. He was finally rescued from the island, but the experience completely altered his way of thinking. Years later he would recall his time there as the happiest in his life.

　　Most of us are like Selkirk when he first found himself stranded—we look at our material resources and wish we had more. But a different possibility exists for us as well—the realization that more resources are not necessarily coming from the outside and that we must use what we already have to better effect. What we have in hand could be research material for a particular book, or people who work within our organization. If we look for more—information, outside people to help us—it won’t necessarily lead to anything better; in fact the waiting and the dependence makes us less creative. When we go to work with what is there, we find new ways to employ this material. We solve problems, develop skills we can use again and again, and build up our confidence. If we become wealthy and dependent on money and technology, our minds atrophy and that wealth will not last.