The Forced Wake-up Call

It is time for another fable about life lessons.

A wise man and his disciple were passing through a desolate place as they traveled all over to gain and propagate wisdom. The desolate place had a hut in very poor condition, which was occupied by a family- a man who lived with his wife, three young children, and a thin, malnourished-looking cow. Nevertheless, the wise man and the disciple were well-received by this family. The wise man asked how did the family manage to survive in such conditions. The poor man replied:

‘This cow keeps us going- she provides us with milk. Some of it, we drink, and some of it we turn into cheese. When we need some extra cheese, we go to the city and exchange it for certain goods and other types of food. The cow is of great help to us.’

The wise man thanked the poor man and left.

Later, the wise man instructed his disciple to get the cow, take her to the forest and let her wander away. The disciple was horrified. He tried to reason with the wise man, ‘The cow is all they have! How can I do this?’ The wise man persisted, and the disciple reluctantly did as he was told.

Days and months went by.

The remorse was getting to the disciple and one fine day, he decided to go back to that desolate place with the hut and see what had become of the family. In place of that hut was a lavish house, and in front of it were people enjoying themselves. The disciple thought the poor family probably had to vacate the place and they all would have been rendered starving and homeless. Anxious, he asked a man passing by, about the family that used to live in a hut in that very place. The man said that this is the very same family.

The disciple was surprised. He went to the front yard, and asked the man there about their lives, what did they do that it improved so much within months. The man replied ‘When the cow wasn’t with us any longer, we were forced to think about new ways to survive and gain resources. We had to develop skills, we had to come up with innovative ideas. We had to expand our horizons.’

How is this fable relevant to life- professional or otherwise?

Comfort zone: Comfort zone isn’t just about being comfortable with a good life. One can get too comfortable with any situation, good or bad. When one gets too comfortable, one stops pushing for something better. The story thus reminds us that we may find ourselves in difficult situations, but if we don’t stop pushing there, we could get too comfortable even within the difficult situation. This could be applied to a company that might be struggling to meet its targets, to an employee who gets by the job they dislike, without trying to move beyond their comfort zone. It is easy to get comfortable with being mediocre, and it is necessary that we introspect about our skills and competence every once in a while, before any harsh wake-up call forces us to do that.

However, if the wake-up call does come up, the next point comes into the picture.

Motivation: Until the day the cow left them, the poor man and his family felt that this was all to their lives. As mentioned earlier, they had got too comfortable with their situation. At times, the daily routine of corporate life may make us feel like this is all there is to our career, and there is no getting better. A wake-up call in the form of a sudden lay-off, unexpected negative feedback, losing a long-term client, a surprise change in team leader or team members- such events could act as pushes to get better. It is up to us if we let them be pushes to get better, or situations that we get too comfortable with. It is up to us to expand the horizons of our beliefs.

Making peace: There are times when one needs to be in the moment, and accept the situation for what it is. But there is a thin line between making peace and getting too comfortable. The poor man’s family had got too comfortable with their meagre resources. Once the cow left, they made peace with it- they did not wait for it to come back. And once that departure had been acknowledged, they started to think beyond their horizons, and that is when the magic happened.

A sole tree that provides one with everything, when cut off, will force everyone to think about better ways of meeting their needs