The Lazy Townspeople

Now imagine this in the middle of town. You'd move it, right?

Greetings, reader! We're still celebrating Black History Month, so we have another story from Africa. This time we don't have a specific country of origin, but I can tell you it's from Western Africa. The Lazy Townspeople speaks to me, but I identify too much with the lazy folks. Although, I'm sure we've all been there. Click the link to read the story, and then continue below to over-analyze it with me.

I have to admit, when I first saw the title for this, I was kind of hoping the townspeople would be rewarded for being lazy. I shouldn't have thought that, since fairy tales try to teach good lessons, but I hoped. I feel bad for the chief. He wanted his town to look nice and well-kept, but if the people who live there won't do anything, then it's going to look terrible. I like the way he taught them all a lesson about cleaning up, though. He didn't punish anyone, he just rewarded the one person who tried to clean up. However, I have to wonder if after that, more trees were mysteriously knocked over and then people dug under where they fell to try to find gold. After all, if it worked once, why not again? They didn't know the chief planted that gold there.

Let's look at that tree in the road a little more closely. I'm assuming the traders were carrying their merchandise on their backs. I can imagine a person moving around a tree in the road, but not a carriage. However, what would have happened if a carriage had needed to get through? Possibly part of the reason these townspeople were so lazy was because they didn't see the consequences of their actions as all that bad. Their gardens may have had weeds, but they probably had some good plants as well. It can be too easy to get caught up in the trap of not doing much because it doesn't seem all that important to keep up with things. However, being lazy like that can actually be more work. It's much easier to walk down a clear street than to pick your way around a fallen tree. It's just that moving the tree takes more effort at one time. I'm sure we've all had something similar happen to us. Solving the problem would make our lives easier in the long run, but it's so much effort up front that, for awhile at least, we find it easier just to ignore it.

I suppose what I'm saying is that we are all the lazy townspeople, although hopefully not too often. However, on those times when we're the young farmer and we get things done, we make our lives easier and sometimes get rewarded for it. Instead of spending so much time and energy to work around the problem, he just solves the problem and makes a lot of money doing it. Who doesn't want that? So, the moral of this story is: get things done, even if they're hard, because you'll be rewarded. Alternatively, for the cynics out there, if there's a problem, make sure someone powerful cares about it before you solve it so they'll reward you.

Have a different moral? Annoyed I didn't analyze the tree as representing all of life's problems that we have to start solving ourselves but can get help in solving? Have a story you want me to look at? Comment below!