Poisonous Label
Everyday early morning I used to go in a park for a walk. In that park there was a statue of a pig, on top of a twenty feet pillar. I looked at that pig everyday for some days. Being a lazy guy, I thought "Lets not take any effort to look at this pig each day, it is going to remain a dirty pig". At the bottom of the pillar, at visible height I wrote ,'A dirty little Pig'. I 'labelled' that statue.
From then onwards whenever I came across that pillar I used to read that label and used to scream, "A dirty little pig". I never took effort to look twenty feet above at the pig.
Today, I visited the park with some of my friends. As a routine, when I came across the pillar, I read the label and screamed, "A dirty little pig". All my friends laughed at my ignorance. When I asked why. They said, "Take some effort to look at the statue".
When I looked I saw 'A big elegant Elephant'. I laughed at myself. I had visited that park for many days, but I never noticed when the dirty pig turned it an elegant elephant.
From that incident I learnt, "Never label anyone, take effort to see the real situation, take effort to understand people. You never know when a pig turns into an elephant and offer you a ride".
5 comments:
"Never label anyone"
My conclusion would not be so extreme.
Without lables life would tough. Evertime i walk in the park, i dont to look up and see whether it is pig or elephant. I am even more lazy than the author ;)
Once I have labled it pig, it is pig for me, ofcource till i re-lable it.
If it has turned into an elephant i dont care if i am wrong as long as i can live it. I'll rely on the "laughter at my ignorance" from my friends to correct myself. Only then i'll look up, notice the changed elephant, re-label it as elephant, and move ahead with my life. Then it is elephant for me, till some one laughs at me again.
Now this is not to say i like being laughed at, but i dont want to bother myself with unecessay decisions everyday of my life. And the reason i am assuming that "elephant or pig" distinction is unnecessary is because of the choice of the metaphor. Statue of "pig or elephant" high on some pillar hardly signifies any thing important ;)
The fundamental point i am trying to make is that:- unless and until the correctness of the label is very important to one's life, it is better to ignore the correctness, live by label and let life correct you if the need be.
hurray !!!!!! this is one of the largest comment i have ever posted. i never thought i could type so much of nonsence ;)
Jigar,
We just have different ways of looking at same thing.
Great to hear your views. I liked the way u expressed ur thoughts.
Its nice to hear different perspectives from different people.
Keep reading, Keep commenting.
I am glad you realized something very important by yourself.
It takes people lots of experiences to get serine enough to reach this conclusion.
Ive never understood ppl who talk about 'first impressions' and so on.
Impressions are about ppl - their characters and what they really are like, over time.
Of course, as the pig had remained the same for so many days it was quite OK to have called it a pig, I dont know about the dirty bit.
Then, since you didnt check it for so long, it was OK to assume it to be a pig. About the shouting bit, Im not sure.
The best was of course, when you looked and saw the elephant, you accepted it with a laugh. That is the best that can be done.
So perhaps, wait before the adjective is added, and do not shout it out, and keep checking because you never know when the pig becomes an elephant.
Its not all that bad to label people. :)
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