The Spirit of a Turtle
I starred blankly at the computer screen while sitting on this little couch in my bedroom. Fifteen minutes had passed by and I still haven’t come out with a satisfying idea on the name for my new blog. There are couple of names in my mind already, but it just didn’t sound appealing nor have this deep meaning that could represent my vision on the blog. I turned around and crawled my way to the bed, I want to have this short nap or just a break from this uninspired mind.
While my eyes were resting, my thought were still lingering around the blog’s name. Maybe putting some animal as symbol would be cute. “What figure will be suitable then?” I wondered. Suddenly, the story of “The Rabbit and The Turtle” popped in my head. It was my favorite bedtime story back then; I once used it as narrative in my school speech assignment and my friends loved it. The character of the turtle is indeed giving me a deep impression. I admire the wisdom he has, which reflected on how he perceives himself and the way he reacts to the world. Most importantly, I feel totally relatable to his spirit which I often refer to wisdom in this chaotic world.
In short, “The Rabbit and The Turtle” is the story about the running competition between two unequal contenders, a rabbit and a turtle. The rabbit always boasted his ability to run fast and teases the turtle for his slowness. One day, the turtle challenged the rabbit to race. Of course, the cocky rabbit accepted the challenge and quickly ran ahead of the turtle. As the weather was hot and the rabbit had already got the halfway point, he thought it wouldn’t do him any harm to take a nap and continue the race after.
Meanwhile, the turtle kept ambling step by step, enjoying the sun on his shell. Slowly but sure, he moved forward from time to time. Finally, he came to the finish line and won the race. The rabbit was just waking up from the nap, and when he tried to catch up to the finish line, it was already too late.
“You don’t have to be the fastest to win,” said the turtle.
It is a simple story which have many layers of wisdom underneath it. When I was a child, I simply took the moral of the story was encouraging people to be more persistent like turtle and avoiding any arrogance like rabbit. I still agree with those advice, but somehow it has deeper meaning to me now. I think maybe when you acquire more life experience, you might see something from many perspectives. As the case of the turtle, I saw there are at least three qualities that we can learn from him:
· Awareness: the turtle was not only aware of his own traits but also his opponent’s, the rabbit. Turtle knew he couldn’t run, but he also identified his resources; he has legs, strong will and good stamina. Meanwhile, the rabbit might be fast, but he was too impatient and arrogant. In this case, winning probability wasn’t necessarily zero.
· Embracing yourself: it means acknowledging our quality without judgment and the urge into becoming somebody else. This is the next step after awareness. The turtle acknowledged his incapability of running as fast as the rabbit, but this fact didn’t make him beat himself up. Instead, he embraced it and found another way of winning, by walking persistently.
· Courage: knowing there was high probability of losing the race, but the turtle still chose to challenge the rabbit. It is called courage, the act of the brave one in the face of problems and difficulties. Maybe it wasn’t about winning, but how you respond to the fear, to the challenges that might seems impossible to handle. Turtle made it, he got to the finish line in his own pace, with all the resources he had.
Often the case, I felt exhausted running in the race of life. Everyone seems to be moving and winning while I was left behind. Sometimes, it had been worse; I lost my sight and felt defeated. Luckily, the turtle comes. He reminded me to keep track on my own path instead of measuring up myself to somebody else achievements. He teaches me awareness, perseverance, and courage.
He says, “Don’t worry! You are not late, you will make it to the finish line just in time. And hey, don’t forget to look up during the ride, you gonna like it!”
With Love,
A Happy Little Turtle
