Not everything is as it seems. People around the world have always used moral fables to help people gain deeper insights and understandings.
Subscribe to our Newsletter!
Receive selected content straight into your inbox.
Here are 3 moral fables to expand your thinking
1. Look up and you look beautiful
Jenny is a young girl. Not having faith in her looks, she always kept her head down looking at the floor to avoid attention.
Then, one day she saw a hairpin with a green bow on it in an accessory shop. She walked in and tried it in her hair. It looked charming, so she decided to buy it.
The shop owner praised her as she walked out wearing the hairpin saying: “You look beautiful!” She was delighted by the compliment even though she did not believe it.
Eager to let everyone see her lovely hair accessory, Jenny made a point of holding her head up when she left the shop. She hardly noticed when she bumped into someone in her hurry. Back at school, she saw her teacher when she entered the classroom. The teacher congratulated her, saying: “You look so pretty!”
Jenny received much praise that day. She thought it must be the new hairpin. She wanted to take a picture of herself, so she went to stand in front of the mirror. She was shocked when she saw there was no green bow in her hair! Bumping into the person leaving the shop earlier must have loosened it, so it fell off.
Self-confidence is its own kind of beauty, but many people lose out on a lot of happiness by worrying about their looks. If you hold your head high and are full of confidence, everyone will think you are beautiful.
2. A greedy mouse
A fat mouse found a jar of food one day. It wanted to crawl into the jar to enjoy the food. However, the mouse was too fat and the opening of the jar was too small. There was just nothing it could do.
Wanting to eat the food so much, the mouse came up with a way — to stay hungry for three days to slim down. As planned, it quickly got into the jar after reducing its weight. It was so happy and hungry that it ate up every bit of food in the jar. When all the food was gone, the mouse wanted to get out. Nevertheless, its big tummy would not let it!
If you let greed consume you, you will suffer in the end.
3. Plain life
An olive tree laughed at a fig tree, saying: “You have no leaves in winter. Your bare branches look so ugly. Look at me. I am forever green and beautiful at any time of the year.”
Soon, snow started falling. Flakes gathered on the olive leaves. As the snowfall continued, the branches finally broke under the heavy snow piling up. The beauty of the olive tree was gone, and so was the tree itself in the end. The fig tree, due to its bareness, on the other hand, was safe from the snowstorm.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and pride comes before a fall.
These are just a few examples of moral fables that give people deeper insights into life’s hidden truths. Every culture has its own moral fables to inspire its people.
Translated by CC
