DAILY DOSE By Bikram Vohra
I love animal parables. That’s because animals are smarter than most of the people I know. I always recall a sign on the table at an airline executive’s office. It read: “Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle… when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.”
Like the scorpion who asked the frog to take him across the river and the frog said, no way, if I did that, you’ll sting me and I’d die.
Hey, said the scorpion, if I did that, I’d die to, no way I’d hurt you.
The frog, convinced, said, well, now that you put it that way, here hop on board. And half way through the river, the scorpion stung the frog. As they were both drowning, the frog asked painfully, why would you do that.
The scorpion replied, because it is in my nature.
One of the frog stories I like is about the one on the lily pad when the pretty lady comes for a walk and the frog croaks, “Oh help me, please, I am actually a prince under the spell of a witch and if you kiss me I’ll turn back to my normal self and marry you and take you to yonder castle where you can cook and clean and wash my clothes.
The lady laughed, picked up the frog and said, no way, old son and that night supped on frog’s legs. Way to go.
Remember the lizard that would not attend the household pests conference because he was too busy holding up the roof. I know people like that, they think without them, life would collapse, they truly believe they are indispensible. You can want to be needed but wake up to reality, stop being a lizard.
Here is a thought provoking one, a simple line but so true of even us folks who work together. The hard working bullock who shows initiative knows he will go to the plough and risk being whipped. The lazy one sits in the sun and gets away with it. You know the ones in your office.
I read this one the other day: One day a peacock met a crane and said, “So sorry for you. You have so dull feathers. Look at the fine colours of my feathers.”
Well!’ replied the crane, “yours look brighter then mine. But I can fly high up into the sky. All you can do is to strut about on the ground.”