The Frogs & the Oxen
An Ox came down to a reedy pool to drink. As he splashed heavily into the water, he crushed a young Frog into the mud.
The old Frog soon missed the little one and asked his brothers and sisters what had become of him.
“A great big monster,” said one of them, “stepped on little brother with one of his huge feet!”
“Big, was he!” said the old Frog, puffing himself up. “Was he as big as this?”
“Oh, much bigger!” they cried.
The Frog puffed up still more.
“He could not have been bigger than this,” he said. But the little Frogs all declared that the monster was much, much bigger and the old Frog kept puffing himself out more and more until, all at once, he burst.
Vanity and pride are different things, though often the words are used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinions of ourselves, vanity on the other side, to what we would have others think of us. The Frog wanted the whole frog world to believe he is big, no, bigger than the Ox. In a bid to prove himself, he puffed and puffed. His vanity never allowed him to think of the consequences of his base actions. In the end he burst to death like vain people who will never listen even when the whole world advises them. Before pride there is destruction. Vanity kills.
The danger with pride is that it makes you look down on other people. You cannot see something above you as long as you are looking down. That is where most human conflicts arise. History is full of disastrous but would-be-avoidable wars that claimed thousands, no, millions of precious and innocent lives just because the present leaders at the time failed to control their vanity. Marriages have collapsed. Friendships ruined. Workmates reaching a point where if one person passes on the left the other automatically turns to the right. They never see eye-to-eye. Why all this? Vanity and pride. No man wants to be looked down unto. We are sensitive creatures. We easily detect those who undermine our worth. When we realize that, we develop defense mechanisms to try to either defend or suppress the spiteful. This is a direct cause for the majority of the fierce hates we see nowadays. Of course some other factors may be at play here, but vanity of our fellows really stirs even the most of the silent.
Moreover, pride hinders us to admit our faults and mistakes. Man is an imperfect creature. We make mistakes. Many of them sometimes. Yet majority of us would rather die or lose our jobs than to admit we were in the wrong and ask for mercy and forgiveness. YES, saying sorry is such a difficult word to many that a man is determined to endure job loss than to submit to such a “dishonorable” thing. The situation even becomes worse when that person he has to apologize to is a lady. I know of a man who is determined to endure the hardships that comes with climbing the highest peak of the Everest as punishment than say sorry to his wife for a mistake he well knows he has committed. To him ‘sorry” is such a spiteful word. It indicates weakness. He would rather fill an empty dam with water using a cup than to say sorry to his wife. Unfortunately, such scenarios are the rule, not the exception. Many men always go wrong but they can’t face it, leading to their arrogant behaviors that only ruin their precious marriages. What do you lose when you admit a mistake done too your wife? Because she is a woman and you are a man? Terrible!
Email Us on editorial@nnafrica.com
