It was about 10:30 on a sunny Wednesday morning and my writing coach had just left my office. I was sitting at my desk frustrated, looking at all the corrections on the piece that we’d just worked on. I was getting kind of discouraged about this whole writing a book thing and wondering if anybody would benefit from it.
My next appointment showed up at the door. His name was Wil. Wil had just stopped by on the way to see a mutual friend and wanted to chat for a while.
After a few minutes of small talk, he shared with me how he used to tell stories after every class he taught at his martial arts school in San Diego, CA. He went on to tell me one of his favorite stories.
This story is about a farmer who owned an old mule. The mule helped around the farm pulling carts and doing different chores. But the mule had been with the farmer for a long time and after years of hard work, the farmer decided to let the old mule just hang around the farm and not work anymore.
The farmer would run into the mule once or twice a day and watch him just hanging around enjoying his days. On this particular day, the farmer did not see his old mule anywhere, which worried him about his old friend. The farmer started to look around the farm hoping to find the old mule.
After a couple of hours of searching, he finally found the mule stuck in an old well. The farmer tried and tried to get the mule out, but the well was too deep and he had no equipment around to help him. After awhile the farmer began to think to himself. "This mule has had his time and maybe I should just bury him right here in the well." With this in mind, he grabbed his shovel and started throwing soil on top of the mule. But with every shovel full, the mule shook his back and dumped all the soil under him. The farmer kept pouring the soil in the well, with the mule shaking it off his back until there was enough for the mule to walk out of the well.
Wil left about 11:30 that morning. Back in my office, I kept thinking about the story that he told me. Well, maybe all my stories, lessons, and experiences could be like the soil I am pouring on top of my students. They can get buried with it, or choose to use it as a stepping stone and climb out of their well.
I felt a lot better that afternoon.
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