|
|
The Red and Blue
Coat |
Once there were two boys who were great friends, and
they were determined to remain that way forever. When they grew up and got
married, they built their houses facing one another. There was a small path that
formed a border between their farms.
One day, a trickster from the village decided to play
a trick on them. He dressed himself in a two-color coat that was divided down
the middle. So, one side of the coat was red, and the other side was blue.
The trickster wore this coat and walked along the
narrow path between the houses of the two friends. They were each working
opposite each other in their fields. The trickster made enough noise as he passed
them to make sure that each of them would look up and see him passing.
At the end of the day, one friend said to the other,
"Wasn't that a beautiful red coat that man was wearing today?"
"No", the other replied. "It was a bluecoat."
"I saw the man clearly as he walked between us!"
said the first, "His coat was red."
"You are wrong!" said the other man, "I saw it too, and it was blue."
"I know what I saw!" insisted the first man. "The coat was red!"
"You don't know anything," the second man replied
angrily. "It was blue!"
They kept arguing about this over and over, insulted
each other, and eventually, they began to beat each other and roll around on
the ground.
Just then, the trickster returned and faced the two men,
who were punching and kicking each other and shouting, "Our friendship
is OVER!"
The trickster walked directly in front of them, and
showed them his coat. He laughed at their silly fight. The two friends saw this
his coat was red on one side and blue on the other.
The two friends stopped fighting and screamed at the
trickster saying, "We have lived side by side like brothers all our
lives, and it is all your fault that we are fighting. You have started a war
between us."
"Don't blame me for the battle," replied the
trickster. "I did not make you fight. Both of you are wrong, and both
of you are right. Yes, what each one saw was true. You are fighting because
you only looked at my coat from your own point of view."
The moral of this story is that, we must be tolerant of
each other’s views.
We must learn to listen to what other people say. For
two heads are better than one.
|
