Valuable lessons from a moonlight tale

The typical life of a young Nigerian: You sit down at night under the full moon and listen to stories from an older storyteller.

While growing up and till now, I always visit my grandparents in the village a couple of times every year. And I am always blessed with rich stories and life experiences that are certainly of great benefits to my life, and those I tell the takes to. Tonight, I will share with you a popular tale which we all think we know everything about, but in reality there is more to the tale than we think.

So on a particular day in the village I sat down waiting to be fed some tantalizing stories. (It always amazes me how grandpa never runs out of them). He started; "I will tell you the story of the Tortoise and the Hare".

Really grandpa? Is it the same widespread story or another one? He asked me to tell him the one I know. "Easy. The Tortoise and Hare had a race, but the hare grew overconfident and underestimated his opponent. Thinking it was an easy match, he went to rest hoping to catch up with the Tortoise later. He slept off, when he woke it was too late. Tortoise had already won the race" .

"And what is the lesson?" he asked.

"Slow and steady wins the race".

He then told me that what I have just narrated barely makes 20 percent of the tale. Really? There is more to it?

Read to the end, as I will be your grandpa for some minutes.

The hare, knowing that there is no way the Tortoise can actually win him asked for the competition a second time. He acknowledged that he lost the race because he was relaxed and careless, a mistake he would not repeat. This time around, the Hare wins with a huge gap.

The lesson: Fast and consistent will always beat the slow and steady. The one that is reliable and reliable in what he does will always outshadow the slow. It is good to be slow and steady, it is better to be fast and reliable.

The story does not end there. The tortoise sat down and thought of how he could beat the hare again. Well, trust Mr Tortoise, he got an idea.

He challenged the hare to the race again. This time, in another location. They set out, as expected the hare is already far ahead. But he had to stop when he encountered a river. Hares don't swim. So while he stood there thinking of what to do,the tortoise got there, swam across, continued the race and won.

The lesson: Identify your strengths beforehand and change the playing field to suit those strengths.

The tortoise knew his strength was the fact that he can swim, which was the hare's weakness. So he made use of it to his own advantage. Create opportunities that will spotlight and enhance your strengths.

Well, the story has not ended still. By now the two are best friends and they met to think of how they could have run the last race better. They decided to run the last race again, but this time as a team.

The hare carried the tortoise on his back and started the race. When they got to the river, the tortoise carried the hare on his back and swam across. The hare carried the tortoise again and they finished the race, with looks of satisfaction and accomplishment.

The lesson: While it's good to have individual brilliance and strengths, the best results comes from working as a team. This is because teamwork is about circumstance leadership, letting the person with the relevant strength take the lead in various situations. Therefore, most of the time teamwork beats individual efforts.

The final lesson: When we stop competing against each other and start competing against the situation, we perform much better.

When he finished, I was silent for almost a minute. The tale hit differently, I saw how this applies to various aspects of our lives as humans.

I hope you have learnt something from this story. Maybe I can share another story from grandpa next time. He has taught me a lot, which I would like to share with everyone.

Thanks for reading.

08/10/21