Ancient Wisdom

  A Razor once said to a sword, "How is it that men always speak of you with respect, while they hardly make any mention of me?" "Because," said the sword, "you skim over the surface, while I go deeper." "Just so," said the razor, "and thereby do them more harm than ever I can." "You are quite right, "said the strop, who was of course an ally of the razor; "men always call those great that do them the largest amount of harm."

Once, in the state of ‘Wu’, there was a man who had raised an ape in a cage. Ten years had passed when, one day, he felt so sorry for his ape, having spent ten long years in a small cage, that he set it free. To his surprise this ape came back two days later.  He asked the ape, “Did I not send you far enough?” Then he and his family carried the ape into a faraway valley and released it, but the ape, after ten years of caged life, had forgot its original habits and customs. Hungry, it didn’t know where to look for food and could only cry. Finally, it died of hunger in the deep valley.  #WorkplacePsychology #CorporateCaptivity #EmployeeAutonomy #LearnedHelplessness #LeadershipFail #AncientWisdom

  A wealthy man in the East had no knowledge of music; yet he pretended to know a great deal about it. So, whenever a famous singer came to him, he would tie one end of a string to his coat-tail, and give the other end to his wife, who understood music well, and who generally sat behind a screen, according to the custom of ladies in the East. The understanding was whenever there was anything in the singing that was especially praiseworthy, the wife should pull, that the man might nod his approbation of it. Once a great singer was displaying his skill, and suddenly the strong snapped. The man cried, "Wait a bit, good singer; the string hath snapped!" The whole audience was amazed, and in the end, knowing what he really meant, exclaimed, "A Parrot and a Fool can do nothing without prompting!"

  Once upon a time there was a man named ' Ji Hou ' who loved monkeys and had them trained by professional han­dlers. One trainer, named ‘Tuo Shi’, dressed the monkeys up like human beings.  He put on tall hats, colorful clothing and embroidered shoes and taught them to kowtow, stand erect, sit and kneel just like human beings. When ‘Tuo Shi’ was satisfied with their behavior, he took them to ‘Ji Hou’, who was very glad to see them and invited them to drink spirits.  The drink excited them so much that they jumped and somersaulted, tore hats and clothing shreds, threw off their shoes, and showed their true selves.