ESL Blogs

How long should we wait for others to live up to our expectations?

Listen to a story. A family of tortoises went on a picnic. They packed food and set out to a place they had selected, behind the hills. When they reached the spot, they unpacked their picnic basket. They found they had forgotten to bring salt. Food without salt is tasteless. The youngest tortoise being faster than the others, was asked to go back and get salt.

The youngest objected. What if in the meantime the snacks were eaten up? They assured him they would wait for him. Six months passed, and there was no sign of the youngest tortoise. So the rest of the family decided to open the basket and eat the snacks. When they opened the snack basket, the little tortoise jumped out of the bushes and screamed, “I knew you would not wait till i came back. For six months i have been hiding in the bushes to make sure you would not eat without me. Now my suspicion has been confirmed, and i am not going to get the salt.”

   Some of us are like the suspicious tortoise: we waste time waiting for people to live up to our expectations. Instead of doing the right thing ourselves, we wait for others to act in ways we expect them to. We have not learned to enjoy doing what our intuitive judgment tells us is the right thing to do.