Thank you Audreys (lyrics from You and Steve McQueen) for reminding me of this all-important fact.
So, what I’d like to know is… how should we define waste exactly? Where is the line between:
“oh he/she could’ve been so successful at <insert profession here> … so much talent but gee, what a shame”
and
“oh yeah, he/she is amazing at <insert profession here> … they’re really ahead of the game, so talented”
Who decides that exactly? A straw poll? A national magazine?
Or does the person themselves not necessarily know that they rock? Do these conversations only go on behind their back?
Wouldn’t it be reflected in their career progression I hear you say, their salary, the car they drive. Well sometimes, sure. But not always, no.
If you like stories with a moral, then read on. If you fancy happy endings, well you may be disappointed…
Those non-West Aussies might not know the story so well, but back in early days of our great state, there was a very talented and intelligent man by the name of CY O’Connor.
O’Connor was an engineer from Ireland, who’d spent time working in New Zealand before Sir John Forrest, premier of WA, offered O’Connor the position of engineer-in-chief . In reply to his inquiry as to whether his responsibilities would cover railways or harbours or roads, Forrest cabled ‘Everything’.
Both Forrest and O’Connor had known the toughening experience of surveyors working in unexplored places. O’Connor was the more sensitive, with wide and cultivated tastes and a passionate sense of justice for men of all degree. For the next ten years they worked closely together.
Forrest’s first demand was a harbour at Fremantle to accommodate the royal mail contractors, the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co. and the Orient Steam Navigation Co., whose vessels were the largest steamers coming to Australia.
The resulting Fremantle Harbour is still one of the finest in the world, having served as a base through two world wars and as a port for countless fishing vessels, ferries and leisure boats over more than a hundred years.
(the following is taken from http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A110059b.htm)
…
During his time, O’Connor effected striking improvements in building and operating the government railways.
With the rush following the discovery of rich gold at Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie , the lack of water became extremely serious.
In November 1893 responsibility for water-supplies on the goldfields passed permanently to the Department of Public Works: O’Connor established the goldfields water-supply branch.
Just when O’Connor began work on a plan to provide an abundant, permanent supply of fresh water for the Coolgardie goldfields is not known, but by mid-1895 his plans were under way.
With limited resources but with the enthusiasm of his staff, O’Connor made plans. By the end of October 1895, designs and estimates—showing alternative materials, pipes of varying dimensions, three different quantities of water—were ready for Forrest. The scheme was imaginative and dramatic; simple but bold. The scheme could be completed in three years and was estimated to cost £2½ million. Forrest accepted it but he had to convince parliament, and persuade it to support the raising of a London loan.
O’Connor suggested that the scheme be submitted in 1897 to a commission of experts: he visited London where three British engineers commended the plan as entirely practical, the greatest undertaking of its kind yet constructed. But nothing stilled the local opposition, criticism and attack.
Two years passed, from his own initial approval of the plans, before Forrest obtained the parliamentary support for the Coolgardie Water Supply Scheme that he sought. Even then, delays occurred.
Forrest and his friend Sir John Winthrop Hackett, editor of the West Australian, commended the plan. Both Forrest and O’Connor saw it in a wider context, as part of a related plan to enhance the colony’s development: a harbour at Fremantle; railways and communications; water for railways, potential settlements, goldminers; and, later, the western link of an Australian transcontinental railway.
In February 1901 when Forrest withdrew from the State government to enter the first Federal parliament, his dominance was not repeated. Short-lived, unstable governments left the Coolgardie water scheme and O’Connor vulnerable. Work was well advanced, but at a crucial stage. His decision to use on the water main a novel, electric caulking machine provoked a storm.
In 1902 while he was in South Australia advising its government on an outer harbour for Adelaide, harassment intensified. In parliament much criticism was uninformed, malicious and unbridled. Eventually O’Connor submitted a detailed memorandum, rebutting a long list of criticisms aired in both Houses.
The Sunday Times was vicious and defamatory (so nothing’s changed then – ed). These attacks, and the silence of the minister and the government, wounded him. Depressed, affected by neuralgia and insomnia intensified by overwork and nervous exhaustion, O’Connor needed a respite not controversy.
O’Connor’s confidence in his scheme was vindicated on 8 March 1902 by a successful preliminary pumping test of six miles (9.6 km) of the water main over the most difficult part of the route. That evening one small leak was discovered near Chidlow’s Well. He arranged to accompany the engineer in charge of construction to the site on Monday. That morning, 10 March 1902, he prepared for his customary early ride but his usual companion, his youngest daughter, was unwell. He rode alone along the Fremantle beach past the new harbour, then south to Robb Jetty, where he rode his horse into the sea. His deft revolver shot ended his life.
He had left a note: ‘The Coolgardie Scheme is alright and I could finish it if I got a chance and protection from misrepresentation but there is no hope of that now and it is better that it should be given to some entirely new man to do who will be untrammelled by prior responsibility’.
O’Connor had been a man of strong personality, initiative and imagination. He was compassionate, forward looking and seemed to many contemporaries a genius. With his varied interests and quick wit he was a delightful host, and a man of strong family feeling.
A bronze statue of O’Connor by Pietro Porcelli was later erected at Fremantle.
By the end of 1902, as planned, the work was completed for the estimated cost: the great reservoir was ready, the pumps installed, the main laid to Coolgardie and extended another twenty-five miles (40 km) to Kalgoorlie. The water had completed its carefully regulated flow begun eight months before in the Helena River valley at Mundaring. On 24 January 1903, amid great rejoicing, Forrest turned on the water at Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie. He praised O’Connor, ‘the great builder of this work … to bring happiness and comfort to the people of the goldfields for all time’.
…
Whenever I think about giving up, I always think of CY O’Connor. If only he had backed himself for a few more months, he would have been alive to see one of the greatest modern engineering feats of our time – a feat that he conceived and planned against a tidal wave of scrutiny.
So, is this the ultimate story of the tall poppy? Was O’Connor so far ahead of his time that only a few other men could see what he saw?
I also often think of history’s great artists and musicians who lived and died in poverty, never knowing their own genius and that their work would go on to be adored worldwide.
We all have a talent that we should be cultivating and we all ‘waste’ opportunities. And assuming we have the luxury of ‘wasting’ any time at all in achieving our goals, how much is acceptable?
Between you and me, I’m worried I’ve wasted too much of it already… and time is certainly one thing we can’t get back.
So, my advice would be, if you know someone who has a talent, make sure they know about it… help them to see they mustn’t waste what they’ve been given.