Do you really want to be the tortoise?

best writing coach Carrie Jones

On Thursday, my co-podcaster, Shaun, and husband guy, takes over the blog.

He’s adorable. I hope you’ll read what he says even if he does occasionally sound like a surfer dude from the 1990s or Captain Pontification. And no, we don’t always agree. 🙂

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Shaun

Hey all! I just read the Tortoise and the Hare by Æsop. You know, I must have heard this tale a few times as a child because I remember hearing it. But I was just thinking of it after having a short discussion with Carrie about something or other.

Anyway, it turns out that the tortoise won simply because the hare fell asleep. I was so disappointed!

For some reason, I had always imagined the hare sprinting for a certain distance then just stopping to like . . . I don’t know, have some fun? Really! Run a mile and just stop at the neighborhood pub for a pint, a burger, and some socialization with some cute female hares.

And then I really thought about the story, and I thought, Wait! How far is a race that involves a tortoise really going to be?

Man was I disappointed. All of these years, decades really, I have thought that the hare was just a showoff party animal. Turns out that he was a lazy son-of-a-gun who didn’t take advantage of his life.

He could have won that race handily and enjoyed the spoils of winning after the fact for some good long time afterward. No, he chose to be lazy and take a nap and look what happened. That tortoise ended up winning and getting all of the play from tortoise and hare alike that comes with fame.

What a tale! People, it has a practical meaning to humans today. And it is not that keeping your head down, toeing the line, and working hard will get you great reward. It is that sometimes you just need to take time for yourself and enjoy life!

You see that hare didn’t care that the tortoise won the race. He could cover so much more ground than that tortoise in any given amount of time that it would never be possible for the tortoise to have as much fun as him.

You have to take time for yourself! It is okay to be the tortoise sometimes, but if you don’t take a nap once in a while, you will end up losing the race.

Now, go do something that you enjoy and remember to always LOVE YOUR WAY THROUGH IT!

Shaun

Author: carriejonesbooks

I am the NYT and internationally-bestselling author of children's books, which include the NEED series, FLYING series, TIME STOPPERS series, DEAR BULLY and other books. I like hedgehogs and puppies and warm places. I have none of these things in my life.

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