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The Power of Discouragement
Years ago working in Slovenia, I met an art teacher, Andrej Grošelj, who has stayed in touch and long since become a friend. With the discovery of Google’s Language Tools, he is able to send email messages in his native tongue.
This morning, as I was working on a revision of some material about the destructive power of criticism, this little fable appeared in my Inbox. I have taken some liberties with the translation, as Google gave me an approximation of meaning, strong and clear enough to really touch me, but incomplete and choppy. If anyone has a better translation or version of this story, please let me know.
Once there was a group of frogs who organized a competition. Their goal was to reach the top of a tall tower. A large audience gathered to see the game, cheering—and the race is on.
Now to be honest, none of the spectators believed that it was possible for the frogs to climb to the top of the
tower. All you could hear were shouts like, “Oh, how exhausting! They’ll never succeed!” or “They’ll certainly fail! The tower is way too high!”The frogs started to despair, though some continued climbing, on and on. The frogs in the crowd continued calling out, “This is preposterous. Nobody can do this!”
More and more, the frogs responded to this discouragement and started giving up. But one frog climbed on, refusing to quit. With great effort, this one frog reached the top.
The other frogs naturally wanted to know how she made it. One of them went to the tower to ask her what she did.
It turns out the winner was deaf!
And the lesson of this story:
Never listen to pessimistic people who still can only see difficulties and impossibilities. They will steal your best wishes and destroy the hope in your heart!
Everything you hear and read can have an impact on your behavior! Therefore, always tune into the positive. Become “deaf” if someone says to you that you will not be able to realize your dreams!
I can personally attest to how anxious people can be to dump on a dream. I think this is probably true for anyone who attempted to reach a significant goal or make a significant change in his or her life. Even though it may be justified as trying to protect the dreamer, I think that big ambitions can reflect people’s fears and self-limitations back to them. This is where I learned the value of “magic sentences” like “Thank you for sharing,” and of disengaging from anyone whose energy was likely to pull me down.
Note: This article originally appeared in the Humor and Fun Stuff section of this site.
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