Lessons from a fable

Have you heard of the fable of the hare and the tortoise? I am very sure you have heard of this fable. Recently I had to share a thought in the area Toastmasters club. And I prepared to talk about the lessons we can learn from this fable. I think we can learn lessons from the winner of the race who is the tortoise and also from the creature who lost the race-the hare. So what lessons can we learn from the tortoise? The most important lesson we can learn from the tortoise is that slow and steady wins the race. Compared to the hare the tortoise had zero talent. Yet the tortoise participated in the race and persevered through his track slowly but steadily. He overtook the sleeping hare and won the race. This tells us that it is okay to be slow. A combination of slow and steady is a winning combination. Another quality that the tortoise had was that he did not feel intimidated by the hare. In life if we see people more talented than us it is a good idea to remember the tortoise who had every reason to feel intimidated by the hare but did not feel so. Compared to the hare the tortoise had zero talent. Yet he won the race and one of the reasons for his victory was that he did not feel intimidated. A related idea is that the tortoise did not feel inferior to the hare although the hare could run very fast and the tortoise was an extremely slow creature. It is a good idea to not feel inferior to others. What lessons can we learn from the hare? Since the hare lost the race we can learn what not to do from the hare. The hare started with oodles of talent but perhaps an equal amount of pride which is probably not a winning combination. Talent plus levelheaded understanding of one's strength and healthy respect for one's opponent is a winning combination but talent plus pride will set us up for failure. Pride does go before a fall as was the experience of the hare. The fact that the hare challenged the tortoise who was not gifted in the realm of running shows that the hare wanted to show off. So the first lesson we can learn from the hare is not to participate in a contest with an attitude of pride or with opponents way less talented than us with a feeling that victory is a given. The second lesson we can learn from the hare is not to be deluded. The slowness of the tortoise was deceptive. It lulled the hare into thinking that he would never be defeated. But he was defeated. And that was because he was deluded by the slowness of the tortoise. The third lesson we can learn from the hare is that we should not take a nap during the race. The hare was there to run the race but instead he napped due to a feeling of superiority. This fable teaches us to not feel inferior or superior to our opponents. The fourth lesson we can learn from the hare is that we should focus only on our own performance during a race. We should not look at the performance of the opponent and change our performance accordingly. The hare looked at the tortoise and saw that he was way behind him. So he reduced his level of excellence and took a nap and eventually he lost the race. No matter who your opponents are run the race of your life to the best of your ability by focusing on your own performance. Never try to match your performance to that of others. These are some lessons I learnt from the fable of the hare and the tortoise. Hope you have a lovely day!