A Story on Wisdom
There were once two rabbits, Wanda the Wise and
Frederick the Foolish, who were walking through a field. They were good friends
and enjoyed their strolls together.
On this walk, they came upon two carrots. One of the
carrots had large leaves sprouting out of the top and the other looked much
smaller from the surface. Frederick was excited and ran up to the carrot with
the larger leaves. “I’ll have this one,” he proudly exclaimed and proceeded to
extract it from the ground.
Frederick was surprised and asked how this could
possibly be.
Wanda looked at her friend and replied, “You can’t
always judge a carrot by its leaves.”
They kept on walking and came across another pair of
carrots, again with differing sized leaves.
This time Frederick allowed his friend the first
pick. Wanda hopped to each carrot, inspected and sniffed them carefully and, to
Frederick’s surprise, chose the carrot with the larger leaves.
As they each extracted their carrots from the
ground, Frederick was bemused to see that his carrot was smaller than Wanda’s.
“I thought that you said that small leaves meant it would be a larger carrot.”
He said. “No,” replied Wanda, “I said don’t judge a carrot by its leaves. It’s
also important to remember to think before you choose.”
Frederick nodded and they ate their carrots before
continuing their stroll.
For a third time, they found two carrots, again with
different sized leaves.
Frederick looked confused and didn’t know what to
do. Wanda indicated that he could choose which carrot to eat. The poor foolish
rabbit, pretended to inspect each carrot, but he didn’t really know what to do.
He knew that he wasn’t as smart as his friend and he looked to Wanda with a
confused expression on his face. Wanda smiled warmly and hopped over to the
carrots. She inspected them and pulled out one of the carrots. Frederick
shrugged his shoulders and went to the other one before he was interrupted by
his wise friend.
“No Frederick, this one’s your carrot,” she said.
“But you made the choice and I’m sure it’s the bigger one of the two. I don’t
know how you do it, but I guess you’re just smarter than me.”
“Frederick, there’s no point in having wisdom if
you’re not willing to share the benefits of it with others. You’re my friend
and I want you to have this carrot. A smart rabbit with a full stomach but no
friends isn’t really wise is she?”
“I guess you’re right,” said Frederick with a full
mouth, “As usual.”
In our search for wisdom, we must also search for a
way to assist those around us with what we’ve learned. The ancient Greek
philosopher Epicurus once said, “Of all the things which wisdom provides to
make life entirely happy, much the greatest is the possession of friendship.”
Be wise, share what you’ve learned with others and help make the world a better
place for those around you.
