Patience to Wealth - No. 49. The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg - The Essential Aesop? - Back to Basics Abridgment Series
Gregg Zegarelli Esq.
Managing Shareholder at Technology & Entrepreneurial Ventures Law Group, PC
"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." Leonardo da Vinci. Adopted by Steve Jobs.
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A Farmer had a Goose that began to lay golden eggs.?
Each day one new golden egg would be laid by the Goose, and the Farmer grew very rich.?However, the Farmer was impatient and tried to get the Goose to lay more than one golden egg each day.?
In desperation for even more golden eggs, the Farmer cut the Goose open to get all of eggs at once!?And, when he cut the Goose open, he got only the death of his Goose, and no more golden eggs.
Moral of the Story: Unsatisfied with some, we lose all.?Patience to wealth.
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Introduction?- The Essential Aesop -?Epilogue
Related Article:?Greed is Good? - The Business of Aesop? No. 9 - The Boy and the Filberts; Satisfaction, Appreciation and Greed - No. 9. The Boy and the Filberts - The Essential Aesop? - Back to Basics Abridgment Series
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Why We Loved It:?Such as it is for many of Aesop's superficially simple teachings, this fable is actually quite complex. It combines multiple principles related to wisdom itself and the implementation of wisdom: e.g., appreciation, greed, trust, discipline and patience.
The farmer received a great gift. Aesop discloses that the farmer had already become very rich from the gift, but the farmer wanted more, faster, and the easy way. The perfect storm of folly (and pretty much the stuff offered by many television commercials).
On one hand, the fable does not precisely disclose that the farmer failed to appreciate his great riches. But, if that is the case, a person failing to appreciate his or her riches might be the greatest foolishness of all, being perhaps the worst natural flawed tendency of human nature. That is, we are rich and don't know it. This is foolish in the first instance, being foolish thinking.
On the other hand, it might be that the farmer understood that he was granted a wonderful gift that provided him with great riches, but the farmer was so lacking in discipline and temperance, that he simply could not stop himself. That is, he knew he had enough riches, but he wanted more, and faster and easier. This is foolishness in the second instance, being the foolish act.
Whether the farmer was foolish in consideration or undisciplined, it is immaterial—it is a disharmony of humanity. Disharmony in a human being is disharmony, and it matters not which instrument is out in tune. Sometimes, it's the wisdom itself, but sometimes it's the temperance. Aesop metaphors the common cheats taken in life: sometimes we don't know better, and sometimes we know better and cannot restrain ourselves. The ultimate result is the same, irrespective of cause.
This fable follows The Most Valuable Industry: The Farmer and His Sons, and Aesop is not contradicting the fruits of hard work. Aesop discloses a cheat to the rules of human virtue. To have a gift, to be foolish in not appreciating the gift, and to be too undisciplined to temper the natural inclination to descend toward sloth, avarice and gluttony.
Aesop's goose and golden eggs are everywhere, for each of us—maybe we don't know it, and, then again, maybe we do.
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"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth." ~ John Heywood, A Dialogue Conteinyng The Nomber In Effect Of All The Prouerbes In The Englishe Tongue
"Patience accomplishes its object, while hurry speeds to its ruin." ~Saadi Shirazi
"Patience is a virtue." William Langland, Piers Plowman
"Know how to wait. It shows a great heart with deep reserves of patience. Never hurry and never give way to your emotions. Master yourself and you will master others. Stroll through the open spaces of time to the center of opportunity. Wise hesitation ripens success and brings secrets to maturity. The crutch of Time can do more than the steely club of Hercules. God himself punishes not with iron hands but with leaden feet. A wonderful saying: 'Time and I can take on any two.' Fortune gives larger rewards to those who wait." ~Baltasar Gracian,?The Art of Worldly Wisdom
"The master eats more than he can hold, and with monstrous greed loads his belly until it is stretched and at length ceases to do the work of a belly; so that he is at greater pains to disgorge all the food than he was to stuff it down. All this time the poor slaves may not move their lips, even to speak...
"It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor. What does it matter how much a man has laid up in his safe, or in his warehouse, how large are his flocks and how fat his dividends, if he covets his neighbour's property, and reckons, not his past gains, but his hopes of gains to come? Do you ask what is the proper limit to wealth? It is, first, to have what is necessary, and, second, to have what is enough." ~Seneca the Younger
"Enough is an abundance to the wise." ~Euripides
"I tell?you: not even Solomon, in all his splendor, was clothed?so well as one?little?flower." ~ONE?: The Unified Gospel of Jesus: 600
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*?Gregg Zegarelli, Esq., earned both his Bachelor of Arts Degree and his Juris Doctorate from Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His dual major areas of study were History from the College of Liberal Arts and Accounting from the Business School (qualified to sit for the CPA examination), with dual minors in Philosophy and Political Science. He has enjoyed Adjunct Professorships in the Duquesne University Graduate Leadership Master Degree Program (The Leader as Entrepreneur; Developing Leadership Character Through Adversity) and the University of Pittsburgh Law School (The Anatomy of a Deal). He is admitted to various courts throughout the United States of America.
Gregg Zegarelli, Esq.,?is Managing Shareholder of?Technology & Entrepreneurial Ventures Law Group, PC.?Gregg is nationally rated as "superb" and has more than 35 years of experience working with entrepreneurs and companies of all sizes, including startups,?INC. 500, and publicly traded companies.?He is author of?One: The Unified Gospel of Jesus,?and?The Business of Aesop? article series, and co-author with his father,?Arnold Zegarelli, of?The Essential Aesop: For Business, Managers, Writers and Professional Speakers.?Gregg is a frequent lecturer, speaker and faculty for a variety of educational and other institutions.?
? 2013 Arnold Zegarelli?and?Gregg Zegarelli, Esq.?Gregg can be contacted through?LinkedIn.?Arnold Zegarelli?can be contacted through?Facebook.
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