Zebra Question
At Friday night services we are treated to a reading by the bar/bat mitzvah boy or girl. Tonight’s reading was particularly enjoyable and thought-provoking:
Zebra Question by Shel Silverstein
I asked the Zebra,
Are you black with white stripes?
Or white with black stripes?
And the zebra asked me,
Are you good with bad habits?
Or are you bad with good habits?
Are you noisy with quiet times?
Or are you quiet with noisy times?
Are you happy with some sad days?
Or are you sad with some happy day?
Are you neat with some sloppy ways?
Or are you sloppy with some neat ways?
And on and on and on and on
And on and on he went.
I'll never ask a zebra
About stripes
Again.
posted by Barbara at 10:06 PM
5 Comments:
Depends upon who is asking...Like deciding whether the glass is half full or half empty...What do you think?
E -- This whole discussion reminds me of an Escher drawing where you can easily see things 2 very different ways.
It`s simply a matter of choice, isn`t it? How Do I like to look at things?
It`s a whole lot more fun to expect the good, and to look at people in a friendly way, and to smile instead of being grumpy. Yes, we can be disappointed, but so what? I`m sure this afternoon something NICE will happen. It`s the Law of Attraction that I believe in.
To me, this illustrates the fallacy of dualistic thinking. There's no "either or" in most of those situations. We are neither good with bad habits or bad with good habits -- we're somewhere in between, right? Life is lived in the gray areas! (Unless you're a zebra.)
Angela -- So much of how we see things is colored by our mood and what's in our heads. Something NICE is always just around the corner.
Steve -- Yes, life in the gray area is a good way to describe this.
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