The sheikh and the camel

Once upon a time there was a sheikh who owned a few camels. Now this sheikh is super smart, and awesomely intelligent. He’s always looking at new ways to improve himself and religiously follows teachings of wise masters from long ago. One day, he heard from his posse of self improving sheikhs that if he drank water from a mystical lake, he would improve his lifestyle ten-fold and be a truly happy and rich man.

So when he finally found the lake and drank this mystical water, he wanted to share the lake’s mystical powers with his camels and said, “my friends, you should drink too!” So not wanting to offend their master, and also some who were REALLY willing to obtain this life improving water, just drank and got it over with.

But one camel calmly gazed back and said, “It’s cool, I don’t need the water”. Clearly, the sheikh thought what a fool the camel was and began telling the camel how wonderful and empowering the water was. he told the camel how millions of books had been sold about the lake and even a widely distributed movie made millions worldwide. He also said how so many people go round the world talking about the lake and how it changes people and improves them. And they also made money from just talking about the lake.

But still, the camel said, “Yea, ok, I know where the lake is so if I wanna drink, I will when I want to.” But the sheikh still insists! Then he thinks he has to use a different tactic and says: “I don’t know why every other camel wants to  improve but you’re not into improving yourself. We’re all embracing this self improvement thing but you’re not. And we only want self improving camels here!”

Now this got the camel pissed. He REALLY didn’t want to drink the water now. So the sheikh got pissed as well and told the camel what a loser he is for not wanting to drink the water. He told the camel how he is wasting his life away and that he was probably gonna end up a loser cos he doesn’t even want to take a sip to improve his life.

So now, the camel HATES the damn water cos its made him a bloody loser. And this REALLY REALLY puts him off drinking the damn water. He KNOWS its good for him and he MIGHT have gone back to drink the water some time, but now he ABSOLUTELY hates the water and doesn’t want ANYTHING to do with it.

But just cos the sheikh has made up such a fuss about it, the camel sticks his head in the lake, pretends he is drinking, then spits some flam from his throat into the lake, then says, “i’ve drunk the water. What a fool I was for not listening to you”. And then the sheikh is happy and they all get on with their lives.

The moral of this story is:

If you’re a sheikh: if a camel doesn’t want to drink water, don’t make him drink water. Cos even if he does, it’s not cos he wants to. And if that happens, the camel just might ruin all the water for everyone.

If you’re a camel: Just drink the damn water and do what everyone else does. Doesn’t mean you have to like it, but it’ll save you alot of pain and anguish!

~ by fooman on November 6, 2007.