The turtles' picnic

Found this story interesting... Maybe I should go meditate on it until my next feeding.. adious

A family of turtles once decided to go on a picnic. Turtles, being naturally slow about things, took seven years to prepare for their outing. Finally the turtle family left home looking for a suitable place for their picnic.

During the second year of their journey they found a place ideal for them at last! For about six months they cleaned up the area, unpacked the picnic basket, and completed the arrangements.

Then, to their dismay, they discovered they had forgotten the salt. A picnic without salt would be a disaster, they all agreed. After a lengthy discussion, the youngest turtle was chosen to retrieve the salt from home. Although he was the fastest of the slow-moving turtles, the little turtle whined, cried, and wobbled in his shell. He finally agreed to go on one condition - that no one would eat until he returned.

Fair enough, the rest of the family decided, and the little turtle left. Three years passed and the little turtle had not returned. Five years rolled by, then six. Then, in the seventh year of his absence, the oldest turtle could no longer contain his hunger. He announced that he was going to eat and began to unwrap a sandwich.

At that point the little turtle suddenly popped out from behind a tree and shouted, "See! I knew you wouldn't wait. Now I am not going to go get the salt!"

Like the little turtle in the story, some of us waste our time waiting for people to live up to our expectations. We are so concerned about what others are doing that we don't do anything ourselves. We're worried that other people are going to let us down, so we live in fear and suspicion. We often think the worst of others, not realising that it's our very lack of faith that leads to the result we dreaded. The family of turtles would have waited for the little turtle to return. In fact, they did; seven years they waited. Eventually the oldest turtle was forced to stopped waiting because of the little turtle's mistrust. In the same way, we often bring out the worst in other people because we expected nothing better from them.

So choose to see the good in people. Don't waste time judging others while not doing anything to improve yourself. If we were like the little turtle in the story, we would all suffer.