A person who begins a task after thinking about the outcome (with an aim), continues with it without any pause, takes rests only upon successful accomplishment, and who does not wastes his time is definitely an intelligent man.
– Vidur
Mustache
I am reminded of a small story. In India there is one state, Rajasthan, which is the most ancient place of warriors; it has created great warriors. In a small village there was a great warrior, and in India, to have your mustache pointing upwards is thought to be the sign of a great warrior. He was such an arrogant and stubborn fellow that he had told everybody in the town, “You can have your mustache, but they should be always pointing downwards. If I see anybody having his mustache pointing upwards, I will kill him!”
And he had killed at least two, three people. Then the whole village became afraid, “This is a strange man; we cannot even keep our mustaches upwards.” But what to do? The man was dangerous and he was powerful.
And then came a new stranger to live in the village. He was a very lazy man. People told him, “You are a stranger, you don’t know the law of this town. The great warrior…if he sees you, your head will be chopped off. You have to put your mustache downwards.”
He said, “I am so lazy that I will prefer it if he chops off my head. But I am not going to make that much effort, because it will take hours…for my whole life my mustache has been trained to remain upwards; to change its direction is not easy. If he chops off my head, that finishes all my anxieties and problems.” People said, “Are you mad or something?”
As he was sitting outside his house, the warrior came and he said, “It seems you are a stranger in this town.”
He said, “That’s right.”
The warrior said, “Stranger or no stranger, pull down your mustache!”
The lazy man said, “That is not possible. But if you are going to have a fight with me, then I will suggest one thing – because one never knows, I may be dead, you may be dead…because it is not going to be just that you chop off my head; I also have my sword, although I have never used it. But if that moment has come I will give it a try. There is no harm; anyway I am going to die.
Before we enter into a fight to kill each other, my suggestion is that I should go inside my house and kill my wife and my children, because more or less I will be killed, and after me my children will be orphans, my wife will be widow, and who will take care of them? And I suggest the same thing to you; that you go home, kill your wife, kill your children, so if you are killed there is no problem; there will be nobody left behind you in misery and pain.”
The warrior said, “The idea is right.” He went back and immediately cut off the heads of his wife and his six children and came back. Just on the way he met the man. He was coming without the sword and he had put his mustache downward. The warrior said, “What happened?”
He said, “I thought, I am lazy man, it is more simple to put the mustache down than to kill the wife and the children. And I have never killed anybody. So I change my mind.” The warrior said, “You idiot! You changed your mind. And I have finished my family!”
He said, “That is not my responsibility. Just, I had to choose between two things, whichever was simpler. I thought, putting the mustache down is simpler.”
Don’t speak anything about your plans as others will try to hinder your regime. The simplest suggestion is that you continue with the task without grabbing much attention.
– Chanakya
