Short Stories

I rarely receive email fwds aaaaand finally today I did. It struck me as quite interesting... Below are two short stories w/ a thought provoking(?) message directly pasted from the email. It is followed by a third I'm trying to recall from what I heard a friend narrate.


"   1. The  Turtles  
A turtle family decided to go on a  picnic. The turtles, being naturally slow about things, took  seven years to prepare for their outing. Finally the turtle  family left home looking for a suitable place. During the second  year of their journey they found a place ideal for them at last! 


For about six months they cleaned the area, unpacked the  picnic basket, and completed the arrangements. Then they  discovered they had forgotten the salt. A picnic without salt  would be a disaster, they all agreed. After a lengthy  discussion, the youngest turtle was chosen to retrieve the  salt from home. Although he was the fastest of the slow moving  turtles, the little turtle whined, cried, and wobbled in his  shell.. He agreed to go on one condition: that no one would eat  until he returned. The family consented and the little turtle  left.

Three years passed and the little turtle had not  returned. Five years...six years... then on the seventh year of  his absence, the oldest turtle could no longer contain his  hunger. He announced that he was going to eat and began to  unwrap a sandwich. At that point the little turtle suddenly  popped out from behind a tree shouting, 'See! I knew you  wouldn't wait. Now I am not going to go get the salt.'  

[Some of us waste our time waiting for people to live up to our expectations. We are so concerned  about what others are doing that we do not do anything ourselves.] 


2. The  Pretty Lady 

Once upon a time a big monk and a  little monk were traveling together. They came to the bank of a  river and found the bridge was damaged. They had to wade across  the river. There was a pretty lady who was stuck at the damaged  bridge and couldn't cross the river.

The big monk offered to  carry her across the river on his back. The lady accepted. The  little monk was shocked by the move of the big monk. 'How can  big brother carry a lady when we are supposed to avoid all  intimacy with females?' thought the little monk. But he kept  quiet.... The big monk carried the lady across the river and the  small monk followed unhappily. When they crossed the river, the  big monk let the lady down and they parted ways with her. All  along the way for several miles, the little monk was very  unhappy with the act of the big monk. He was making up all kinds  of accusations about big monk in his head. This got him madder  and madder. But he still kept quiet.. And the big monk had no  inclination to explain his situation.


Finally, at a rest  point many hours later, the little monk could not stand it any  further, he burst out angrily at the big monk. 'How can you  claim yourself a devout monk, when you seize the first  opportunity to touch a female, especially when she is very  pretty? All your teachings to me make you a big hypocrite  The big monk looked surprised and said, 'I had put down the  pretty lady at the river bank many hours ago, how come you are  still carrying her along?' 

[This very old Chinese Zen story... reflects the thinking of many of us today. We encounter many  unpleasant things that make us irritated/angry/bitter/jealous .. But like the little  monk, we are not willing to let them go.. we keep on carrying  the baggage of the 'pretty lady' with us.]   " 
(-fwd from Mridula)


Thoughts on the above are welcome and so is commenting with another short story!! ;-)


Also, yes! I will write what I promised to... sometime next week when I don't have classes at least. This post may seem like a pathetic attempt at 'keeping up with blogging'... believe me its not that it becomes out-of-sight-out-of-mind but its just difficult to pen everything down in a form that can be shared (takes time & effort to make it cryptic, indirect & politically correct, jk! :P). Anyway, I'm determined not to go on a hiatus this time! Look forward to reading lots next week.  :-)