The Frog in the Well

I’ve always been partial to proverbs—Japanese proverbs have especially been influential in my business and life. I feel these old nuggets of wisdom have much to teach us about numerous aspects of life and ourselves. A favorite Japanese proverb is: I no naka no kawazu wa taikai o shirazu. Loosely translated in English, the saying means: The frog in the well knows nothing of the great sea.

 A further “deep dive” into researching this proverb’s origin was as fascinating as the proverb itself. Its origin can be traced back to the ancient Chinese. In the Chinese version of the original story, a frog has spent its whole life at the bottom of a well—largely content with its little life and hopping around its “beautiful, dark” place, eating copious insects and thinking: What more could I ask for? The frog glanced around and, seeing nothing and no one, it thought confidently: I am the most brilliant frog, living in the best place on earth! No one and nothing compares to this.

 Sounds perfect, right? But the Chinese story does not end there. A wrench is thrown into this frog’s idyllic world when another frog from the outside accidentally falls into the well. It tells the original frog that it and its small world of the well are a mere blip on the radar of the whole world, and that it is nothing but a regular frog living in a little well.

 The Comfort of Living within Our Own Walls

 Talk about a lightning bolt shock. There is so much to unpack here. Let’s start with the perfectly chosen—and truly symbolic—location for the story: a well is known to be a small and confined place of darkness (which in this particular story represents the frog’s ignorance of the outside world and anything beyond his small realm of the well).

 As we read or hear this story of the frog, it is so clear and easy to see how limited the animal’s experience of the world is from its existence in the confined walls of the well. However, what silently screams at us from this proverb is that, in a sense, we can all place ourselves at the bottom of our own wells in our lives—operating with worldview and opinions that are created from our limited scopes of experience (our own little walled well-worlds). And sometimes, it takes an outsider to shine a light into our darkness (ignorance) to open our eyes to the world beyond our own experience.

 Breaking Down the Wall

 This Japanese proverb teaches that rather than remain aware of what is right before us and exist in the bubble of our own firsthand experiences, we should be mindful of the limitations of our perception and proactive in not allowing ourselves to remain ignorant once we see new perspectives.

 This is not a new concept, or should I say dilemma. One of the good things that has come about in these last two trying and turmoil-filled years is that many long-overdue conversations have begun to be raised addressing this exact issue. The world has finally seemed to start to take the wisdom and truth of this proverb to heart. But we have much farther to go and much more to learn.

 I think of that old familiar adage my elders used to remind me of growing up: Before judging anyone, you must first walk a mile in their shoes. The gist of this is that we can never truly know what someone’s experience is—what struggles they are going through or issues or obstacles they are facing in life—unless we have experienced from their same position/point of view.

 Most people would agree that this is a good concept to live by, and while there is no set instruction manual for mastering this, the awareness that there is a need to foster empathy and keep learning—and listening—is a vital first step.