Many Hands and Light Hearts

Over the last several days, and the last few days especially, my family and I have been making some major changes around the house. We've cleaned out the room that used to be called the office, putting the office stuff into the family room, we've cleared out my brothers' and my room, moving our stuff into what used to be the office, and we've cleaned out my mom's room, putting her stuff into the room that used to belong to my brothers and me. Through it all, there has been lots of cleaning, sorting, and organizing. We've filled both the garbage bin and the recycling bin, and we have piles of stuff to donate to Deseret Industries. We've taken beds apart and put them back together more times than I can count. We've all gotten dusty, sweaty, and worn out. It hasn't all gone as well as we'd hoped, but still we've managed to stay positive, mostly because we've been working together as a family.

We're all familiar with the phrase, many hands make light work. This is because when more people work on a project, there's more muscle and manpower going into getting it done. Also, it allows for strong people and smart people to work together, using their individual talents in complementary ways.

But Team Robarts is more than a well-oiled machine of strong, wise, strategic, and diligent people. We're also a family. We love and support each other. We lift each other's spirits with good humor and occasionally music. When we work together, the work is easier, not just because we make a good team, but because we also make a good family.

I suppose that's just another way of saying that we use our talents to work together. Some of of make plans, some of us do the heavy lifting, and some of us use our good attitudes to keep the team working well together. But I think that good attitudes are a trait that's often overlooked when evaluating the capability of a team, and I think that's unfair, and not just because it's a trait my team has in spades. I think it's smart to make sure each team has at least one member that can keep morale high. Even a team of highly capable people can perform poorly if they grind each other's gears. Many hands may still come up empty. Many hands and light hearts make work move smoothly.