“Hard work is the key to success.”, recited the whole class in chorus, as miss Lucy taught them the story of the tortoise and the rabbit. Every child admired the tortoise for the effort he put up in the race, except one.Miss Lucy noticed the look on his face that reflected a complete disagreement towards the story.
“Robin, Please Standup!!” She couldn’t help herself but asking, what was the thing disturbing him!
“What did you get from the story?” Asked miss Lucy hoping to get her answer.
“Ma’am, story was good and motivating. But i didn’t get one thing. When tortoise knew that he is too much slower than the rabbit, why did he agree to participate in the race?”, asked the curious boy. Everyone laughed.
Miss Lucy replied, “They were friends and playing”, somehow satisfying the innocent mind of the child. Though, She wasn’t satisfied from her own answer. The day passed like a normal day and everyone forgot the incident.
His question seemed pretty valid. Why would tortoise agree to race? Isn’t the whole story a just co incidence? Wasn’t tortoise an idiot to agree and lucky enough to win?
But, The answer is no. The tale of rabbit and tortoise is not as simple as it seems. Tortoise wasn’t a fool. He never meant to loose. He was sure that he will win. So,was the race a faux? Isn’t that quite a scandal?
But answer again is, No. The reason why tortoise would never have lost, lies in his definition of winning. He knew under normal circumstances he would never come first so he never intended to outrun rabbit. He participated just to finish the race. So, his focus was just on covering the distance, no matter how much effort and time it takes. Even if rabbit would have finished it first, tortoise still would have won. Rabbit, for tortoise was just a medium for him to challenge himself for something impossible. He had his own goal set up for the race, which if achieved would lead him to victory and eventually did.
So, tortoise teaches us yet another important lesson in life. Not everything is accessible. Some things require quite a miracle to happen, like winning of tortoise did. That doesn’t mean we should not try to do impossible. We should try but, Goal setting is an important aspect of the whole journey. In aspiration of what is almost impossible to achieve, We shouldn’t divert our attention from what we can surely achieve through constant efforts. You never know if that not so big thing turns out to be nearly impossible for others to achieve.
