The Donkey That Can Tell Time

In a small village in Mexico lies a big old clock hanging on the wall of a large church. Beside this church is a small plaza.

One day, an American tourist visited this plaza. He forgot his watch, and he didn’t see the big clock on the church wall. This was also in the 20th century before cellphones were commonplace, so he had no idea what the time was.

He saw a Mexican man with a big sombrero hat and a curved mustache lying on the ground sleeping. Beside him was a donkey.

He then went up to this man and said, “Excuse me sir, do you know what time it is?”

The Mexican man sat up, rubbed his eyes, raised the tail of the donkey, squinted, and then told the American, “It’s 2PM right now.”

The American thought the Mexican was playing a joke on him, so he took out his radio, which reports the time. Sure enough, the radio said it’s 2PM.

The American tourist then shopped around the plaza for a while. Later, he came back and asked the Mexican man again, “Excuse me sir, do you know what time it is now?”

The sleepy-eyed Mexican sat up again, raised the donkey’s tail up, squinted, and then said, “It is 4PM now.”

The American checked with the radio again, and indeed it was 4PM. The American was astonished by this donkey who could tell time, so he decided to buy the donkey off the Mexican man.

He then respectfully asked, “Sir, please tell me, how do you find out the time from this donkey?”

The Mexican man smiled and said, “Simple. I sit up, lift the donkey’s tail, and through the gap between the donkey’s tail and butt, I can see the big clock hanging on the church over there. Then I’ll know the time.”

Moral of the story: If we only look at the surface of matters and miss the deeper essence, then we may end up making a laughing stock out of ourselves.

(Story source: Harvard Family Education)

Commentary

Although we might think the man in the story is a bit dumb, we shouldn’t be so confident that we might not make the same mistake of only seeing the surface of matters. Being able to see the deeper essence and the root of matters is not always that easy.

The Analects of Confucius says,

“Exemplary people attend to the root of matters.”

To become an exemplary person requires learning and cultivation. In other words, it’s common and normal for most people to only see the surface of matters.

To give an analogy, if someone is overweight, that is a surface level symptom. What is the root cause? It’s probably related to their diet and sedentary lifestyle. If that person merely gets surgery to cut away the belly fat, but he doesn’t change his diet and lifestyle, then that belly fat will come back again, along with negative side effects from the surgery. This is attending to the surface level symptoms and missing the root cause.

To be clear, this isn’t to say that symptom-level treatments are bad. If the symptoms are already very severe, we need symptom-level treatments promptly, but if we want to solve the problem long-term, then we need to also have root-level treatments.

Below are some more examples to consider:

Is the conflict really about the matter? Or is it about a lack of respect and willingness to understand them?
On the surface, it seems like they overreacted to a small matter. But if you look deeper, you’ll see that perhaps they’ve accumulated a lot of resentment over time, and that “small matter” was the last straw.
On the surface, they might seem respectful and caring, but can you discern the intention behind their behavior? Is it sincerity or selfishness?
On the surface, they might seem critical, but can you discern their intention? Is it annoyance or true care?
On the surface, it may seem like happy people have good conditions. But in reality, many people with objectively good conditions are still very unhappy.
On the surface, it seems like external stressors are making us stressed. But how come other people in the same situation might not be as stressed as we are?

Conclusion

No matter what problem or goal we have, we should ask ourselves: What are the roots, and what are the symptoms? If we only attend to the surface-level symptoms, then we’ll end up like the man who bought the donkey to tell time.

Weekly Wisdom #335