What happened to the rhyme sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me?
These days, it seems that people are looking for any reason to be offended by something.
With it being Christmas time, the 2017 article about Rudolph the red nosed reindeer is doing the rounds again.
Discussion of the rhyme itself aside, shouldn’t we be teaching people to become more resilient?
While sticks and stones is a good one for children, I am also reminded of two other stories.
The first is the two frogs in a well.
A group of frogs was traveling through the woods and two of them fell into a deep pit. When the other frogs saw how deep the pit was, they told the two frogs that they were as good as dead. The two frogs ignored the comments and tried to jump up out of the pit with all their might. The other frogs kept telling them to stop, that they were as good as dead. Finally, one of the frogs took heed to what the other frogs were saying and gave up. He fell down and died.
The other frog continued to jump as hard as he could. Once again, the crowd of frogs yelled at him to stop the pain and just die. He jumped even harder and finally made it out. When he got out, the other frogs said, “Did you not hear us?” The frog explained to them that he was deaf. He thought they were encouraging him the entire time.
The other is the story of the donkey in the well.
One day a farmer’s donkey fell down into a well.
The animal cried for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally, he decided the animal was old, and the well needed to be covered up anyway; it just wasn’t worth it to retrieve the donkey.
He invited all his neighbors to come over & help him. They all grabbed a dirt & began to shovel dirt into the well.
At first, the donkey didn’t realized what was happening & cried horribly. Then, to everyone’s amazement he quieted down. A few shovel loads later, the farmer finally looked down the well. He was astonished at what he saw. With each shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was doing something amazing.
He would shake it off & take a step up. As the farmer’s neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off & take a step up. Pretty soon, everyone was amazed as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well & happily trotted off..!!!
We cannot, nor should we want to control what people say.
The only thing we can do is control how we respond to those words.
And, isn’t this what we should be teaching people?
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