You’ve seen how much I enjoy inspirational stories. Not the corny kind that encourage you to ride a camel or the trite kind that claim, “everything you need is already within you.” I’m talking about the deep inspirational stories that deal with what makes us good humans. These are the kind of stories that – once we’ve heard them – continue to prod us until we start to seek authentic happiness, the greater good, or a stronger character. They make us want to be our better selves. You know, like the STARFISH THROWING story from earlier this week. Here’s another really good one . . . about a donkey.
A Farmer, A Donkey, A Shovel & Some Dirt
A farmer and a donkey were ambling along an old dirt path one rainy evening. It was getting dark, so neither saw the dark, deep hole looming ahead. At the last minute, the farmer’s eyes grew wide. She saw the hole and jumped to the side. The donkey, less fleet of foot, fell straight in. The farmer gasped, realizing her newfound problem. She yanked on the rope around the donkey’s neck to no avail. The hole was too deep, the donkey too heavy. Making matters worse, the duo was too far from town to seek help. The farmer began to think the worst – that her donkey’s life was lost.
So, she picked up a shovel and began to pile dirt into the hole. Might as well give this animal a proper burial, she thought. The farmer grew sad; what a terrible end to a long day. The donkey grew even sadder, starting to recognize what was going on. He pouted, resigned himself to what was happening, and just let the dirt hit his back.
Then, perhaps out of instinct, he began to wiggle his back and move his legs. The dirt began to fall off his back and onto the ground. Soon after, the farmer threw down another load, oblivious to what was happening in the hole. The donkey again shook it off and then realized that he could step up onto the fresh dirt pile. And on and on it went. The farmer continued to shovel dirt on his back and the donkey kept shaking it off and stepping up. Finally, the donkey was up so high in the hole that he could see the dirt path outlined by the twilight. He was able to step right out of the hole and onto solid ground. He had his life back.
The donkey immediately walked over to the farmer and gave her a good kick in the shin for not being more creative. It was a well-deserved kick indeed.
The moral of the story is easy for me to type, but it is much harder to accomplish in real life:
When life tries to bury you, it’s okay to be hurt for a while . . .
then shake it off and keep stepping up until you’re free.
There are a few key lessons from this story to unpack in this ethics blog.
- Lesson #1: Find Your Rope Throwers / Lose Your Dirt Shovelers –
It often seems that life tries to bury us. But, that’s not exactly true. To be more precise, life places obstacles in our path; that’s just part of the deal. We get hurt, lose jobs, get into car accidents, and just have plain old bad luck – sometimes through no fault of our own. In other words, we fall into holes. It’s just the cost of doing business in a tough and often unfair life. The sooner we accept that truth, the better. But . . . there is usually a way out of the hole if we try hard enough.
Our real problem is that people throw dirt at us while we’re down there. Think back to the story. The hole itself was just sitting there in the road. The hole came with the territory of an old dirt road on a rainy night. It caused a serious problem to be sure – the donkey fell in and was trapped. But, it was the human in the story who tried to bury him alive instead of trying to help.
Instead of Dirt Shovelers, we need people in our lives who will find ways to get us out of our hole. The goal is to find a small group of Rope Throwers. These are our life-lines when we’re down. Then, we must learn to ignore the people in our lives who make things worse – or help push us there. There is a good chance that these people do not have our best interests at heart anyway. My advice is to distance yourself from them. Who cares what they think of you or your life. If distancing yourself is not possible, be stubborn enough to ignore them.
- Lesson #2: It’s Okay to Hurt . . . But, Eventually Rise Back Up –
The second key point is that it’s okay to be sad / hurt when bad things happen to you. We aren’t robots. In fact, it’s unhealthy to immediately eliminate all negative reactions to the bad stuff that happens. What we need to do is eliminate the really negative reactions. By that I mean, we need to stop yelling at our loved ones when we have a bad day at school / work (they didn’t have anything to do with it) or punching a wall or slamming a door when we’re frustrated (you’d be surprised how often this happens). Other than that, it’s okay to feel sorry for ourselves. I’m even okay with that lasting for as long as it takes to get some mental clarity. So, take your time. The key is, however, at some point relatively soon after the bad thing happens, we have to shake it off and step up. We must rise through our pain and back into the light.
Here’s a beautiful poem by Nausicaa Twila that sums this second lesson up more eloquently:
She fell;
She crashed;
She broke;
She cried;
She crawled;
She hurt;
She surrendered; . . . and then
She rose again!
I hope you enjoy this cute story of the farmer and the donkey as much as I do. I hope it pokes at you a bit every time you’re down. When you inevitably fall into one of life’s holes, be like our friend the donkey and never let people bury you alive.
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