The story of rabbit and turtle is a prevalent one taught to young children. In a jungle, there’s a rabbit and a turtle and they decide to race. The rabbit, confident of victory because of his speed, gets lazy during the race, meanwhile the turtle, even with his slow speed wins the race by staying consistent, even when he is slow. Moral of the story? ‘Slow and steady wins the race.’
I do believe in those words. Slow and steady do wins the race. More often, people who are after something for a long time actually achieve it. Persistence prevails. A man can break a mountain with a hammer if he is at it (Dashrath Manjhi actually did it).
It is true, that the slow and study do mostly win the longer more important races of life. But what about the rabbit? What about the creature who is fast by his very nature? The rabbit didn’t sleep during the race because he was sleepy. He slept because he thought he would win anyway. One can say that it was the fault of the rabbit to be careless. But for once, let us think from the point of view of the rabbit.
The rabbit is really fast. He knows he can win even if he gives a headstart to the turtle. And the entire jungle is there to witness the race. What is he to gain even if he wins? If he wins then what? He was way faster than the turtle anyway, there’s no glory in being victorious over him. If you imagine yourself as the turtle, it wouldn’t be very difficult for you to find that there was nothing to gain in the victory, no motivation for the rabbit to do it. And no fear of loss as well, as he knows that he is incredibly fast, boosting up his confidence, probably a bit too much.
There are many learnings in this story, but the most important of them all, which has recently gained my attention is the importance of competition. The importance of being at a place and competing with people who are the best. Your competition can literally change you and your life.
It is rightly said that if you are the smartest guy in the room, you are in the wrong room. It is our responsibility to keep ourselves in a place where we are challenged enough to deal with the given situations and grow. Of course, consistency at your work is incredibly important but so is having competition, solid motives to do your tasks, not being too confident about anything, remembering that ‘To err is human’, and that you are human too.
Until next time!