STORY —-THE BLIND FOAL
A Story Worth Your Time.
There was a mother zebra that had a blind child. She was very sad all the time, because her child couldn’t see the world for himself. It broke her heart, and made her cry.
One day, the mother zebra accompanied her blind foal to the river to drink water. As they walked through the forest, they came across a mother cheetah and her three cubs sitting under a tree. The mother cheetah suddenly burst into a shout of laughter. She laughed so uproariously that her cubs began to laugh too. They didn’t stop, their laughter sounded horrible and mocking.
At once, it occurred to the mother zebra that the cheetah and her cubs were teasing and making fun of her blind child. She felt hurt and angry, and finally wept in silence as they walked away.
The following day, the same thing happened, and it kept on happening. Each time the zebra and her blind foal passed by, the mother cheetah and her cubs roared with scornful laughter. They always seemed to be whispering mean and hurtful things, and then laughing about it.
Upon returning home one day, the mother zebra became depressed, and felt unable to cope. She then said to her foal,
“The cheetah and her cubs are evil and wicked. They will stop at nothing to humiliate you. I will no longer take you to the river, but I will always bring you water to drink. No one in going to insult you if you’re hiding in the house.”
After that day, the mother zebra would always go to the river all alone. And after drinking, she would head home with some water for her foul. But in spite of that, the cheetahs didn’t stop laughing and laughing whenever she passed by. Their annoying laughter soon got her so angry and impatient that she decided to fight back.
Burning with rage, she stormed at them and yelled,
“You wicked cheetahs! I won’t take this anymore! I have stopped bringing my blind child to the river because of your heartless behaviors! Stop laughing at us, or you’ll have me to deal with!”
Upon hearing that, the mother cheetah gave the mother zebra a confused look. She didn’t seem to understand what she said. After a long pause, she finally spoke,
“Wait a minute… I guess you’re misunderstanding things, mama zebra. The truth is, we have never made mockery of you or your blind child. It’s just your assumption. Let me tell you something; you have only one blind child, but I’ve got three blind children, so there’s no point mocking you. Now, about our laughter… we always laugh so loud because we are happy, and I tell them jokes all the time. So my dear, I’ve got much more problems to even notice yours.”
Many times in life, we become consumed with anger and sadness because we assume things that are not entirely true. Sometimes… we see things and we misunderstand. Taking things personally causes us much pain and suffering. And the main reason why we take things personally is because we make assumptions. We often make the assumption that someone else’s action is about us. However, if we pause a moment and look hard into things, we’d realize that most times, people are too busy with themselves that they rarely pay attention to us, let alone criticize us. Everyone’s got their own vulnerabilities and challenges. So, instead of making assumptions, we should learn to ask questions. Most importantly, we should dream big and never be afraid of chasing our dreams, no matter what our assumptions in life are.”