12th March 2024
A wise man & his disciple in their travels saw a hut in the distance in a desolate place where there were no crops & no trees, a man who lived with his wife, three young children & a thin, tired cow.
Since they were hungry, the wise man & his disciple stopped there & were well received.
The wise man asked: “This is a very poor place, far away from anything. How do you survive?”
“You see that cow? That’s what keeps us going,” said the head of the family. “She gives us milk, some of it we drink & some was made into cheese. When there is extra, we go into the city and exchange the milk and cheese for other types of food.”
The wise man thanked them for their hospitality & left. When he reached the first bend in the road, he said to his disciple:
“Go back, get the cow, take her to the cliff & push her over the cliff.”
The disciple could not believe what he was hearing.
“I cannot do that, master! How can you be so ungrateful? The cow is all they have. If I throw it over the cliff, they’ll have no way to survive.”
The wise man took a deep breath & repeated the order: “Push the cow off the cliff.”
Though outraged at what he was being asked to do, the student was resigned to obeying his master.
He returned to the hut & quietly led the animal to the edge of the cliff & pushed the cow.
As the years passed by, remorse for what he had done never left the disciple. One spring day, the guilt became too much to bear & he returned to that little shack to find out what had happened to that family & to help them out, apologize, or somehow make amends.
Upon rounding a turn in the road, he could not believe what his eyes were showing him. In place of the poor shack, there was a beautiful house with trees all around, a farm full of rich crops, several cars in the garage, etc.
Three smart teenagers & their parents were celebrating & enjoying the luxuries.
The heart of the disciple froze. What could have happened to the family?
Without a doubt, they must have been starving to death and forced to sell their land and leave.
He approached the house and asked a man who was passing by about the whereabouts of the family that had lived there several years before.
“You’re looking at it,” said the man, pointing to the people gathered around the barbecue.
Unable to believe what he was hearing, the disciple walked through the gate & took a few steps closer to the lush garden where he recognized the man from several years before, only now he was strong & confident, the woman was happy & the children were nice-looking teenagers.
He was dumbfounded & went over to the man and asked: “What happened? I was here with my teacher a few years ago & this was a miserable place.
There was nothing. What did you do to improve your lives in such a short time?”
The man looked at the disciple & replied with a smile:
“We had a cow that kept us alive. She was all we had. But one day she fell down the cliff & died. To survive, we had to start doing other things and develop skills we didn’t even know we had.
And so, because we were forced to come up with new ways of doing things, we are now much better off than before.”
Sometimes our dependence on something small & limited is the biggest obstacle to our growth. Perhaps the best thing that could happen to you is to push your “cow” over the cliff.
Once you free yourself of the thought “It’s little but it’s certain,” — then your life will change.
Is there a cow (a person, idea, mental block, stereotype, or mindset) in your life that is keeping you miserable?
Throw it off the cliff, Get out of your comfort zone,
Take the risk to get the best results & stay blessed forever.