An Industrious Experience
It was Saturday, June 11th, 2022, and it was also a normal 7 am, and as usual, I was one of those kids who were sleeping in, dreaming about things that are interesting to them. I, personally was dreaming about being the lead racer in a city street race. “Zooming down that road at turbo-speed, in a cool-looking Lamborghini Veneno is Kartik Lakhwani, 500 feet from winning the 2022 Racing Cup!” But it all had to come to an end right at the second I crossed the finish line! My father came to wake me up since I had gotten a call from my family in India.
After having a nice chat with them, I stalled for a bit, got ready, had breakfast, and then having nothing to do, loafed on the couch. Time passed and I decided to go talk to my mother about what I should take on. I was blindly guessing it would be some chores, or to go play outside with my friends, but, she gave me a totally unusual surprise. I was told that my whole family (Mother, Father, Sister, & I) were headed to check on our new home, which was currently under construction (almost finished), and to pick up some leftover stones from our construction site so that we could make garden beds in our backyard. Like they say, trash can be turned into treasure! While we drove there, I was wondering how heavy each stone piece would be, and how many I could lift… My guess was that each piece would be about 5 pounds each, and that I could lift at least 2 at a time, maybe even 3…
Once we got there, I jumped out of the car, ready for heavy stone-lifting, only to realize that it was hot as a stove outside. It was around 100°F (38°C) 🥵🥵🥵! Still, my family and I walked over into our house to check the progress inside, and then quickly walked out to start stone lifting. But you can’t just lift stones!!!!! You need the STONE-LIFTING ESSENTIALS!!! They are:
- A place to put the stones
- A way to lift the stones with your bare hands
- An idea of how many stones we can lift and if we need extra help
- Most Importantly: SOMETHING TO WORK TOWARDS!!!!
Here is how we solved these:
- We can place the stones in our kind neighbor’s/friend’s house
- We can carefully lift the stone from underneath, and slowly pick it up. And when putting it down, we can slowly bend over and let it go! (also making sure our fingers aren’t crushed or squished in the process)
- We could lift as many stones as possible (I lifted about 2-3, depending on the size of the stone), and the more help we can get, the better!
- ICE CREAM!! (My mother promised me and my sister that after a long day of hauling stones, we could go out to eat and also have ice cream!
We talked to our neighbors about our stones, and they were fine with it, so we started picking them up, and taking them to our neighbor’s garage. But just a few minutes in, and very strong and nice man, Chris, showed up, and without even knowing us, started helping out!
Teamwork is also is an essential in all kinds of jobs, and in this stone-hauling one, it was crucial. We were in a really hot environment but we still pushed through and made it, only because we worked as a team. We had fun doing the stone hauling even in those rough conditions, and to enhance our team-building skills even more, we created a chain system, where a person would pick up a rock, pass it to the next person, who would pass it to the next person, who would pass it to the stone stacker. By the time the stone stacker was done stacking the stone passed to him/her, another stone would arrive to them! In this process, transferring heavy stones became easier!
Stone Hauling in Action!
(Click each image for a bigger view, and for a description of the image)
After one whole hour of heavy stone lifting, we were finally finished. In total, we gathered and hauled around 75-100 stones, which each had a different shape and size. Something that was funny was that each stone, either big or small had unproportionate and weird weights. I lifted a 18X15 stone that only weighed about 8 pounds, and then lifted a 9X3 stone which weighed a whopping 13 pounds!! 🤪
After a tiring hour, we headed home. We were out in 100°F (38°C) conditions, with the hot Texas sun radiantly blazing upon us. Our clothes were all powdery from lifting stones, our hands were all white and sore, and we were drenched from sweating. Sitting back in the car, with the cool A/C on, I could almost taste cool ice cream on my tongue, and some good beats going on in the background while I ate it.
Other than having an industrious experience, I also learned a lot. Such as how being kind is the best thing to be, and that you create a ripple effect when you are kind to somebody, without thinking about yourself, and surely one day that kindness will come back to you. And also how hard work pays off if you get your scoop of the ice cream!
I really enjoyed this experience, and I hope you liked reading it as much as I did writing it. I also hope that you learned something new from this experience because I sure did! If you have any questions/comments/feedback for me please comment down below and leave a like on this post. And for more, subscribe to my blog!!
-Kartik Lakhwani
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The Kartik-Sphere 