Hello there.
Thank you so much for joining me for this reading of one of my all-time favourite parables,
The Man,
His Son and the Donkey.
I wonder if you're already familiar with the story?
It is often attributed to Aesop,
Of Aesop's fables,
Although the origin is actually unclear.
It is an old classic parable about how whatever we do,
People are going to have opinions about it.
People are going to make judgments and people can make completely different judgments about exactly the same thing.
If we try to please everyone,
We can end up pleasing nobody and along the way losing sight of what we actually wanted to do to begin with.
Others around us are always going to be looking out through their particular filter with their assumptions,
Their values,
And all we can really do in the end is just try to do our best,
Do what makes sense to us.
And I personally love this particular parable so much because I feel like it exemplifies this theme so well and I find that I come back to this parable over and over again in my own life when I consider this kind of theme.
So I wanted to share this here.
So before we get into the parable itself,
Let's just take a moment here.
To have a nice deep.
Exhale.
Letting go of the day.
Letting go of whichever baggage we might be bringing along with us into this moment.
For right now.
There's nowhere else we have to go,
Nothing else we have to be doing.
So we can just relax.
Get ourselves comfortable.
And enjoy.
This classic old parable.
The man his son.
And the donkey.
Once upon a time,
A man and his young son set out on a journey.
They had a donkey with them.
And they were travelling from one village to another,
Carrying a few belongings and hoping to sell the donkey when they reached their destination.
As they walked along the road,
The father and son talked together,
Enjoying the morning and the changing scenery.
Before long they came to a village.
As they entered,
Some of the villagers looked at them and began to laugh.
Look at those two fools,
Someone called.
They have a donkey and neither of them is riding it.
The father thought perhaps they had a point.
So he told his son to climb onto the donkey and they continued on their way.
A little further along they came to another village.
There,
Some people saw the boy riding while his father walked beside him.
How thoughtless,
One woman said.
Look at that poor old man walking while his young son sits comfortably on the donkey the father heard this and looked at his son.
Perhaps they were right.
So he asked his son to get down and climbed onto the donkey himself.
They continued on their journey.
When they reached the next village,
The people there had something different to say.
Look at that selfish father!
" someone exclaimed.
He rides comfortably while his poor young son has to walk The father stopped.
He looked at his son.
And then at the down key.
Perhaps they were right too.
So he lifted his son onto the donkey beside him.
Now they were both riding.
They had not gone very far when they heard people ahead of them saying,
What a terrible thing!
Two people riding on such a small donkey!
Have they no kindness at all?
The father and son looked at one another.
They had tried writing one at a time.
They had tried letting the other ride.
Now they had tried riding together,
Nothing seemed to please.
Anyone.
They stood beside the donkey.
Wondering what on earth they could do that would satisfy everyone.
At last they had an idea!
If nobody liked them riding the donkey.
Perhaps the answer was to carry the donkey instead.
So they tied its legs together,
Lifted it up,
And began carrying it down the road between them.
People came out to stare.
What?
Fools!
They cried.
Look at them carrying that key.
What kind of nonsense is this?
For a moment.
Neither of them knew what to do.
They had listened to one person and then another.
They had changed their minds again and again,
Trying to do what seemed right.
In the eyes of the people around them.
And still.
There was always someone who thought they were doing it wrong.
And last.
The father smiled.
My son.
He said.
It seems that.
.
.
If we listen to everyone we meet.
We shall never get anywhere.
So.
.
.
They put the donkey back on its feet.
And stopped trying to please everybody.
There will always be someone who thinks you ought to do things differently.
Someone will think you are going too fast.
Someone else will think you are going too slowly.
One person will think you're doing too much.
Another will think you are not doing enough.
And if you change yourself every time someone has an opinion about your path,
You may eventually forget where you were going.
In the first place.
Listen when you want to listen,
Learn when there is something to learn,
And then Come back to yourself.
And remember that you can do it.
Are the one walking your path.
And you do not have to carry.
Every opinion you meet along the way.
