The Tortoise & The Hare
If you haven’t heard the story of “The Tortoise and The Hare,” you have lived a sheltered life, perhaps living in a shell.
One moral gleaned from the original story is that the race doesn’t always go to the swiftest.
I’d like to look at the tortoise and the hare from a different angle.
My notion is that we are both the tortoise and the hare, but we believe we are only one of them. If I may dare say it, our mantra is: “That’s the way I am.”
I haven’t yet completely outgrown my bristle to that phrase, mainly because there’s a part of me that still believes it – The tortoise part.
The tortoise is always looking for the safe way where there are no potential bumps and bruises. This causes the tortoise to retreat to his shell and if that’s all he does, he becomes shellshocked.
The hare gets us out there. It’s the more adventuresome part of us that takes risks.
I would say that we need to balance the two parts of us but that would be inaccurate. Perfect balance means a stalemate. But if you’ve labeled yourself as one or the other, and it’s not working for you, you require a new mixture of these two parts.
Abandoning your shell is too risky for most and it’s not the way I would recommend. I think inching out of your shell and experiencing the outside world a bit at a time builds confidence that you can function out there. It will lead to further excursions and perhaps even vacations away from your shell.
The hare is running away from home. It’s our free spirit wanting to see all that it can see. It often takes us too far out on a limb for a better vantage point of those new vistas, and we experience our share of avoidable crashes and burns.
If you have labeled yourself as one of these characters, you have missed an opportunity to discover that other part of you.
It’s fun to be both and it’s less limiting because the tortoise gets to see new things and the hare finds the comfort of home.
The prescription for the tortoise is: Stick your neck out; the way home for the hare is to sit out a race or two.
If you want to win the rat race, it does go to the swiftest. If you want to be the “Biggest Loser” in the truest sense of the phrase, eat nothing but turtle soup.
If you want to live a fuller life, give up the idea that you are one or the other and seek out the complimentary part of you, which will allow you the flexibility to live out the famous phrase: “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”
All the best,
John
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