Kids & Fables

by Scribe Leaf Library · 1 min read · 1 view

Terrence the turtle believed a good shell should hold everything he might ever need, so over the years he'd tied on a spare umbrella, three different hats for different weather, a small telescope, and a bag of pebbles he liked the look of, until his shell had grown so heavy he could no longer lift it off the ground at all. His friend the heron watched him struggle for a week before finally asking the obvious question: "When was the last time you actually used the telescope?" Terrence thought hard and admitted he hadn't, not once, not in three years. "The pebbles?" Not once either. One by one, the heron helped him ask the same question about everything on his shell, until only the things he genuinely used remained. His shell was lighter after that, and so, strangely, was his walk — faster, easier, freer than it had been in years. He kept one hat. He kept the umbrella. Everything else, it turned out, he'd only ever been carrying out of habit, not need, and habit, once questioned, is a surprisingly easy thing to set down.