He led his own horse across to the corral that contained the seventeen left by the young men’s father. He pushed the gate open, let his own enter, then closed the gate again. Eighteen horses stood in the enclosure.
“Now,” he said to the elder, “you take your portion of one-half.” How many did he get? Yes, the brother counted out nine horses that he delightedly claimed for himself. Thanks to the stranger, he got his rightful share.
Turning to the second brother the cowboy said, “Now you take your portion of one-third.”
How many was this? That’s right, the brother happily led out six horses. To the third brother the stranger said, “Now it is your turn. Take your one-ninth.” Which was how many? Yes, the last brother took his two horses, leaving behind the saddled horse of the stranger.
“Your father has left you more than horses,” said the cowboy. “In setting you this challenge, what else do you think that he has given you?”
“I think,” said the first brother. “That he was trying to teach us that every problem has its solu-tion. No matter how difficult it seems, to find an answer we might have to look at it differently.”
The second brother added, “I think it is more than that. Since we were little kids we have al-ways been fighting and arguing. Perhaps he wanted us to see that working together gave us an op-portunity for happiness. While greed and selfishness separated us, no one was happy.”
“I believe,” said the third, “he was possibly teaching us even more. He was saying that no matter how much each of us thinks we are right, we may not have the answer. That sometimes we need to look outside of ourselves. Sometimes somebody else can offer us a helpful idea for solving a problem.”
The cowboy just smiled as he mounted his horse, cocked his hat, and prepared to ride on.
STORY 69
some mornings more than others, because sometimes the nights before had been scarier than others.
You see, Fred Mouse was afraid of the dark.
He knew he wasn’t alone in being afraid. Other mice were scared of dogs and cats. He had heard that sometimes people were scared of spiders and snakes, or even funny things like standing on cracks in the pavement. For Fred it was the dark. When he went to bed at night and Mommy Mouse turned off the light, he began to get frightened. She would leave on the hallway light to help reassure him, but somehow that seemed to make things worse. It cast shadows across the door and walls. They seemed to change, as though something or someone was lurking in the dark.
When he was younger he used to hop into bed with Mom and Dad if he was scared, feeling the reassurance of just being close to somebody. Now, they told him, he was a big mouse and had to sleep in his own room by himself, like all good mice did when they started to grow up.
It was nice when Mom sat on his bedside and read him a story. Sometimes he would drift to sleep while she was reading, sometimes he would be able to think about the story and forget about the dark. But sometimes the thoughts of the dark would creep back into his mind and again he would start to feel scared.
One morning after eating his toasted cheese sandwiches for breakfast, Fred went looking for his friend, Philip Bear. “Are there times when you get frightened?” he asked Philip.
Philip thought for a while and said, “I certainly get frightened at times that the honey pot might be empty.”
Fred didn’t think it was quite the same thing, but he asked Philip, “When you are frightened, what do you do?”
“Well,” answered Philip, “I go to check that there is honey in the pot. If there is, then I know I don’t need to be frightened anymore.”
Not sure he had got the answer he was looking for, Fred went searching for Tabby, the cat.
“What do you do when you are frightened?” he asked Tabby.
“Well,” replied Tabby, “like all cats, sometimes I get frightened of dogs. Some dogs can be friendly and don’t really bother about wanting to hurt cats, but some dogs are not so friendly and, at those times, it is good to be scared. The fear gives me the energy to run away and protect myself. I think it’s a matter of learning to tell the difference between what you need to be frightened of and what you don’t.
“You see,” continued Tabby, “you can come and talk to me, so already you know how to over-come the fear that mice usually have of all cats. You have learned that I am a friendly cat and there is no need to be afraid if the situation is safe. But it might be a good thing to be afraid of other cats who see mice as a meal rather than as friends.”
Fred hadn’t thought about it that way, but he felt more confident when Tabby told him that there are some fears he had already been able to overcome.
Next he sought out his friend, Tom, who was sitting at the table eating breakfast—as little boys are prone to do at breakfast time. He asked Tom, “What do you do when you are frightened?”
“Sometimes I get frightened if Mom shouts at me,” said Tom. “Not that she shouts very often, which is probably why I get frightened when she does. I guess I know she won’t be angry forever and because she’s not, I won’t be frightened forever. So I tell myself that the feeling will go. Then I try to do something that feels nice, like give her a hug if she is feeling upset, or go outside and play for a while. Usually I come back feeling better.”
DEVELOPING SKILLS
When Fred went to bed that night it was with lots of thoughts in his mind about the conversa-tions he’d had during the day. What could he learn from the things his friends did? Could he ask his mom to read him a story, to absorb his thoughts in some interesting tale? That had worked some-times in the past. Could he check his room—like Philip did with his honey pot—to reassure him-self there was no need to be afraid? Like Tabby, could he weigh up whether it was appropriate for him to be afraid? Was there any real risk? If there was, what could he do about it? If there wasn’t, how could he relax and drift into a comfortable sleep? Could he do what Tom did, and remind himself that feelings like fear will pass and won’t stay around forever?
What do you think he did? Whose advice did he follow? Did he do some of these things or all of these things? Or did he perhaps think of other things that he might be able to do himself ? What-ever he did, I do know that it was possible for Fred to snuggle up at night in the hole in the wall in the corner of the house and sleep a comfortable, rested sleep.
STORY 70
THE SECRETS OF SUCCESS Therapeutic Characteristics
Problems Addressed
■ Dealing with rivalry
■ Facing a challenge
■ Setting goals
■ Finding the means to succeed Resources Developed
■ Acknowledging strengths
■ Acknowledging weaknesses
■ Using strengths
■ Making choices about weaknesses
■ Training and preparation Outcomes Offered
■ Focusing on your strengths
■ Applying yourself toward your goal
■ Developing your personal best
“Grandpa,” asked Thomas on the phone, “can we walk the Bibbulmum Track next weekend and stay at Hewitt’s Hill Hut?”
“That could be possible,” said Grandpa, thinking of the previously enjoyable hikes they had on the local backwoods trails and how Thomas had a particular preference for Hewitt’s Hill Hut.
“Could I bring some friends? Daniel, Bon, Luke, and Willo?”
Grandpa noted Daniel’s name at the top of the list. Daniel and Thomas were best friends as well as friendly rivals. They were always challenging each other to see who was the better.
If the competition had been confined to schoolwork, Thomas might have been the victor. He learned his new spelling words faster, he was quick to pick up on addition and subtraction, and he could read aloud quite effortlessly—but these are not the things that are really valued among little boys, and education is a lot more than reading, spelling, and math.
Daniel had the physical prowess. He could run faster, climb higher up a tree, and throw a stone farther. When it came to designing and building a paper airplane, Thomas was quick and creative, but Daniel always seemed to fly his farther.
Some days they would take the long walk home from school through the woods. There they would climb to the top of a granite outcrop and engage in the ultimate little-boy challenge: to see who could pee the farthest. Daniel always won. That in itself was infuriating, but it wouldn’t have been so bad if he didn’t laugh at Thomas. Thomas felt hurt.
He was also worried, for the annual school football tryouts were coming up, and Thomas des-perately wanted to be selected. He had no doubt that Daniel would be. Daniel always was. He ran fast, he handled the ball well, and he didn’t get frightened when other kids tried to tackle.
One weekend, Thomas arrived at his Grandpa’s looking forlorn. Daniel had beaten him again when they stopped at the granite outcrop. Again he had laughed at Thomas, and boasted about how he’d be on the football team.
“What’s wrong?” asked Grandpa kindly.
“It’s Daniel,” said Thomas. “He is always better than me. No matter what he does, he always seems to win. He’ll get selected for the football team and I won’t. He beats me at everything I do.
We have the grand championship coming up in a few weeks and I know that he’ll win . . . and laugh at me again.”
Thomas’s grandpa gently stroked his grandson’s shoulder and said, “You and Daniel have been friends for a long time and in that time there is something I have learned about Daniel. Over my life I have met a lot of other people like him. You see, I used to be a champion swimmer.” Thomas had seen the dusty old trophies in his grandpa’s den and the ribbons that hung from the bookshelf. He had seen the couple of framed photographs of his grandpa as a younger man, proudly holding a tro-phy. He knew this about his grandpa but they had never spoken about it before.
“In my experience, the best athletes have a few secrets that you never hear them talk about,” his grandpa confided, as though he were a master magician finally agreeing to tell his student some safely guarded magical tricks of the trade.
Thomas was eager to learn the secrets. He wanted to know what he could do to beat Daniel.
“First,” began Grandpa, “it is helpful if the ability comes to you easily. You see, there are some things you do very well and some things Daniel does very well. We all have our different skills and abilities. The secret is to concentrate on your strengths. Know what they are and how to use them.
Be aware of what you are not so good at, too, and make the choices as to whether you want to fo-cus on those things less, or try to develop them. Thinking too much about what you can’t do may stop you from doing what you can.
“In my time as an athlete I have seen many people who have the ability, but they tend to be lazy.
They could make it to the top but don’t put in the effort.
“The second secret of top athletes,” continued his grandpa, “is that they train. Have you ever
DEVELOPING SKILLS