The story of the cow

When I was told this one I liked it quite a bit. Many of you have surely heard this story, but it never hurts to keep a backup:

The cow

“The story goes that an old master wished to teach one of his disciples why so many people live tied to a life of mediocrity and never manage to overcome the obstacles that keep them from succeeding. For the master, however, the most important lesson the young disciple could learn was to see what happens when we finally free ourselves from those ties and begin to use our true potential.

To teach the young apprentice a lesson, that afternoon the master had decided to visit with him the poorest and most desolate places in that province. After walking for a long while they found what they took to be the humblest of all the dwellings.

That half-collapsed shack, standing at the farthest end of the hamlet, had to be, without a doubt, one of the poorest of all. Its walls stayed up by a miracle, though they threatened to come down at any moment; the makeshift roof let the water through, and the garbage and waste piling up around it gave the place a decrepit look. The most surprising thing of all, however, was that eight people could live in that shack of 10 square meters. The father, the mother, four children and two grandparents somehow managed to fit in that place.

Their old clothes and their dirty, foul-smelling bodies were proof of the deep misery that reigned there.

Curiously, in the middle of that state of scarcity and total poverty, this family had one possession that was unusual in such circumstances: a cow. A scrawny cow that, with the little milk it produced, gave that family the little they had of any nutritional value. But more important still, this cow was the only material possession of any value the family had. It was the only thing standing between them and total misery.

And there, amid the garbage and the mess, the master and his novice disciple spent the night. Very early the next day, without waking anyone, the two travelers got ready to continue on their way. They left the dwelling and, before setting off, the old master said to his disciple: “It is time for you to learn the lesson you came to learn.”

Before the young man could do anything to stop him, the old man drew a dagger he carried in his bag and slit the throat of the poor cow tied by the door of the dwelling, before the young man’s disbelieving eyes.

Master, said the young man: “What have you done? What kind of lesson is this, that it justifies leaving this family in total ruin? How could you kill this poor cow, which was the only thing this family owned?

Paying no attention to the young man’s questions, the old man got ready to go on, and master and disciple left without knowing what would become of that family after the loss of its only possession.

Over the following days, again and again, the young man was haunted by the grim thought that, without the cow, that family would surely starve to death.

A year later, the two men decided to go back along those paths to see what had become of that family. They looked for the humble lodging again, but in its place they found a big house. Clearly the death of the cow had been too hard a blow for that family, who had surely had to abandon the place, and now a new family, with greater means, had taken it over and built a better home.

Where could that man and his children have ended up? What had happened to them? All of this went through the young disciple’s mind while, hesitating, he debated whether to knock on the door and ask about the fate of the former residents, or to continue the journey and avoid confirming his worst suspicions.

Imagine his surprise when out of that house came the man who a year earlier had given them shelter in his home. How is this possible? asked the young man. A year ago, when we passed briefly through here, we witnessed the deep poverty you were living in. What happened during this year for all of this to change?

Unaware that the disciple and his master had been the ones who caused his cow’s death, the man told how, by coincidence, on the very day they left, some scoundrel, envious of his cow, had savagely slit the animal’s throat.

The man went on to tell the two travelers how his first reaction to the death of the cow had been despair and anguish. For a long time the cow had been their only source of sustenance. Owning that cow had earned him the respect of his less fortunate neighbors, who envied him such a prized possession.

However, the man continued, shortly after that tragic day we decided that unless we did something, our very survival would most likely be in danger. So we decided to clear some of the land behind the shack, we got hold of some seeds, and we decided to plant vegetables and legumes we could feed ourselves with.

After a while we started selling some of the vegetables we had left over, and with that money we bought more seed and began selling our vegetables at a stall in the market. That way we had enough money to buy better clothes and fix up our house. And so, little by little, this year has brought us a new life.

The master, who had remained silent, listening closely to the man’s fascinating account, called the young man aside and asked him in a low voice:

Do you think that if this family still had the cow, it would be where it is now?

Surely not, the young man replied.

Do you see? Their cow, besides being their only possession, was also the chain that kept them tied to a life of mediocrity and misery.

Once they no longer had the false security of feeling they owned something, even if it was nothing more than a scrawny cow, they had to make the decision to look for something more.

In other words, the very cow that their neighbors saw as a blessing had given them the feeling of owning something of value and of not being in total misery, when in reality they were living in the middle of misery.

That is how it is when you have little. The little you have becomes a punishment, because it does not let you look for more. You are not happy with it, but you are not totally miserable. You are frustrated with the life you lead, but not enough to want to change it. Do you see how tragic this situation is?

When you have a job you hate, that does not cover your minimum financial needs and brings you absolutely no satisfaction, it is easy to make the decision to leave it and look for a better one. However, when you have a job you do not like, that covers your basic needs but offers you no chance to get ahead; that offers you a certain comfort but not the quality of life you truly want for yourself and your family, it is easy to settle for the little you have.

Many of us also have cows in our lives: ideas, excuses and justifications that keep us tied to mediocrity, giving us a false sense that we are doing fine when in front of us lies a world of opportunities to discover. Opportunities we will only be able to appreciate once we have killed our cows.”

Source: http://matalavaca.blogspot.com/

Author of this version of the story: Victor Melgarejo