The Parable of the Bricklayers

Action, Milestones & Purpose, and Kicking Ass

Let’s discuss the parable of the bricklayers. We’ll start by introducing the parable itself. Then we’ll get to the juicy part, and discuss what we can learn from it in terms of purpose, goal-setting, achievement, and life choices.

The Parable of the Bricklayers

What is the parable of the bricklayers? There are many variations of it, but it goes something like this.

A man is walking along the street when he comes across three bricklayers at work. He is curious to know what they’re doing, so he asks one of the men, who responds: “I’m laying bricks. This is how I spend my life. All day, every day, I lay bricks.”

Another of the bricklayers chirps up, saying “I’m building a wall. This is how I spend my life. All day, every day, I build walls.” “Curious,” the man thinks, “they’re both doing the same thing, but their perspective is different.”

Finally, he asks the third bricklayer, who responds “I’m building a cathedral. This is how I spend my life. All day, every day, I build cathedrals.”

The Parable of the Bricklayers: My Interpretation

You might have your own interpretation of what the parable means. To me, it shows that perspective is crucial in life. The three men are all engaged in the same task, yet their perspectives on it are radically different. They view the essential purpose or finality of their work differently.

The first man, who states that all he does is lays bricks, is focused only on the current activity in its most literal, matter-of-fact form. He is unable to put his current activity, which alone may seem trivial, into its larger context. He overlooks the fact that every little brick is a crucial part of the wall he’s building. He’s lost in the world of the immediate, the banal, the perfunctory. To him, there is no larger purpose or finality other than the task itself.

Though the second man understands that the bricks will eventually form a wall, he fails to realise that the wall isn’t the ultimate goal. It’s merely a milestone or element in the larger project, which is the entire cathedral. He sees further than the perfunctory aspect of his work, but still doesn’t grasp the intermediate milestone for what it is. He realises there’s a greater purpose or finality than the bricklaying itself, but isn’t thinking broadly enough.

The third man zooms out completely and sees how all the little steps contribute and add up to a remarkable outcome. He clearly realises that each little brick is necessary for the wall, and that each wall is necessary for the cathedral. In addition, he keeps in mind the largest purpose of what he’s doing.

You could argue that a fourth man could be introduced. If he were to expand his perspective beyond the first three, it would encompass the purpose of the cathedral itself, which could involve the citizens of the city, the church institution, or the entire species.

So how does this parable relate to our day-to-day lives? I hope to show you that the parable conceals valuable wisdom regarding how we live our lives.

In Your Life

We’re always working away at various tasks, from professional work to housework to exercise to child rearing to DIY to socialising. All of these tasks have various layers of purpose or finality. We can look at everything we do from the lens of bricks, walls, or cathedrals, and our levels of engagement and fulfilment can vary accordingly. If you lack motivation in your life, this might explain why.

To help us understand this, I’m going to use three terms: action, milestone and purpose. All of our daily activities have these three components.

The action is the hundreds of little steps we must follow in the here and now to accomplish a task. In the parable of the bricklayers, it’s the bricklaying. Many simple, little bricks must be laid for the grand wall to appear.

The milestone is what your immediate action will produce in the short or medium term if repeated often enough. At a given time, you may have one or several. As you reach one milestone, others come into view. In the parable of the bricklayers, the wall is the milestone.

The purpose is what your milestones will produce in the long term if you reach them all. Think of this as the ultimate reason you’re taking lots of action in the first place. In the parable of the bricklayers, the cathedral is the ultimate purpose.

When all we see are our immediate actions, we’re likely to feel uninspired. Let’s face it, the individual building blocks of any task or pursuit are usually quite mundane and uninspiring in and of themselves. If unaware of our milestones or purpose, we’ll tend to feel listless and uninspired. What’s the point of laying lots of bricks if they don’t contribute to anything?

When we see milestones, we have a longer-term perspective and all our action makes more sense. Even if the immediate task starts to bore us, we’ll still realise that it’s both part of a larger purpose and essential to that purpose. That said, intermediate goals or milestones aren’t hugely inspiring in and of themselves.

If we manage to stretch our minds and keep our attention on the ultimate purpose of our immediate actions, suddenly everything seems more interesting. We’re contributing to something bigger than us and the immediate present. All our actions and milestones are recontextualised, giving us greater fulfilment and the energy required to continue working daily on our project.

Metaphor for Actions, Milestones and Purpose

A handy metaphor for the action, milestone and purpose taxonomy is that of climbing a mountain. In this example we can clearly see these three aspects of the task.

The action is each individual step, the act of walking. No matter how long and arduous the climb may be, ultimately it comes down to taking one step over and over again. That said, in and of itself, the action doesn’t provide direction or meaning. It is simply pure, raw doing.

The milestones are points where you stop, rest and take in all your prior progress: think viewpoints, rivers, reservoirs, lunch spots, and so on. They divide the climb into various sections, and new ones appear as you progress. Notice that the milestones provide a sense of purpose for every little step, and a repeated sense of achievement throughout the climb. Without them, you may start to lose hope in your ability to complete it.

The purpose is the climb itself. It both guides and inspires all your action and milestones and gives it purpose. If there is no destination, why take thousands of steps? How can you set milestones? How can you even begin walking? You can’t. The climb undergirds everything you do.

The Parable of the Bricklayers in Daily Life

I believe I understand and trust in the power of action, milestones and purpose more than most people I know. I’m able to set new, inspiring purposes in different areas of life and create a cascade of milestones and action plans for reaching them. I’m able to think about the effects my habits and routines (actions) will produce in the short to medium term (milestones) and what they all ultimately contribute to (purpose).

This mindset is behind my all my achievements: when learning a language, I hold in mind my ultimate purpose (fluency, reading native materials, or making friends), cascade it into milestones, and create a set of nitty-gritty, day-to-day, actionable items that take me to them.

That said, another way to view the parable of the bricklayers is that it has you contemplate the ultimate fruition of all your actions. And rather than inspiring you, it can actually precipitate a life crisis.

Remember, everything we do can be thought of in terms of this three-part principle. What if we were to honestly, soberly evaluate all our nitty gritty, day-to-day actions and their ultimate consequences, such as our transport habits, our food choices, our speech, our career, our social behaviour, our investments?

I feel most of us would conclude we’re not living our life as we should be. To get by and live our comfortable little lives, we spend a lot of time harming ourselves, harming others, and making ourselves miserable in the meantime. Possibly that’s why we never seriously ask such questions: it’s painful. Are you a light, or a parasite?

Though I’ve improved a lot, I still realise I’m pretty parasitical in some areas. It hurts to realise it, and I’ve seen first-hand that such a realisation can cause a life crisis. I experienced this in my early twenties when my university days were coming to a close. I gradually came to understand that my future career was a parasitical one, and that 10 or 20 years later, after climbing the ladder in a soul-sucking profession, I’d be left feeling empty, bitter and regretful.

That knocked the stuffing out of me, and I was left questioning my entire existence. It took me four years to find a solid new purpose that was aligned with my values and felt meaningful to me. That said, it was so worth it, because now I have Deep Psychology.

Deep Psychology

My full-time job is Deep Psychology. I spend my days teaching psychology, personal development and spirituality through my website, podcast, products and YouTube channel. Without close attention to the three elements of action, milestone and purpose, none of this would exist.

I created the initial vision in my mind from scratch, and continually renew it and update it. That grand purpose helps me to constantly set and reset milestones, then take action day after day to make it all happen.

If I were to focus only on my daily habits and routines, I probably wouldn’t have made it this far because the activities themselves don’t fuel me too much. Sometimes I don’t want to write articles, create videos, make calls or do my accounts.

When I forget my milestones and purpose, I lose vigour, cut corners, and procrastinate. With no milestones or purpose, I probably wouldn’t do these things at all. In fact, I’d never have taken the bold decision to start this project.

When I connect with my ultimate reason for doing this, suddenly the obstacles and resistance lose power. All my actions are put into a new light: I see them as both necessary and meaningful. All my actions are channeled towards my greater purpose.

It also teaches me that building grand cathedrals ultimately means laying lots of little bricks.

My views on manifesting and how to make your dreams real.

How to Build Cathedrals

Let’s finish this article on a high by asking how we can build cathedrals: that is, how can we bring amazing things to fruition in our lives?

The answer is quite easy. The parable of the bricklayers tells us exactly how: fundamentally, we must lay bricks. That is, we must take lots and lots of daily action, and that action must be carefully planned and organised towards milestones, which should together lead us to our larger vision.

This is very refreshing. All important projects (yes, even the pyramids) are made up of thousands of tiny little steps or actions that multiply and accumulate to eventually fulfil their grand purpose. This means we don’t need to focus on building the cathedral: we split the project up into walls and facades and get to work laying the bricks.

To me, the key is to know your cathedral, hold on to it steadfastly, and channel everything towards it. What do you ultimately want to achieve? What truly inspires you? What would you love to bring about in your life?

Know that, and you can start laying the bricks, minute by minute, day by day, year by year, until finally you have a huge, awe-inspiring cathedral before you.

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