It is often very tempting to get involved in someone else's problems. However, by getting too involved could we end up with their fate?
It’s almost impossible to keep our noses out of other people’s business sometimes. It can be so tempting to try to force them to go along with our way of thinking sometimes because we have been there and we know better or in some cases we just think we know better, as is the case with the ox and the donkey.
The donkey certainly thought he knew better about how to help the ox. He advised him to go on strike so that he would have to deal with being treated so badly. The only problem with this is that when the ox went on strike someone had to replace him. The donkey didn’t think far enough ahead to assume his own consequences. If he had kept his nose out of it, he wouldn’t have had to struggle with the burden that was then given to him.
This story was told to Shahrazad by her father when she had decided that she wanted to step in to stop the King from killing so many women. She was already safe, at least for the time being because the King was not about to hurt his most trusted advisor by killing his daughter. If he had betrayed the Vizier it would be an extremely foolish move since traditionally Viziers hold nearly as much power as the King himself, it would have been political suicide. In the Vizier’s eyes his daughter was risking her neck for something that she had simply no business being involved in. The advice the Vizier gave her was quite wise, if her plan backfired she would be under the same fate as the women who had married the King before her.
The same lesson that the Vizier offers to his daughter is good for us as well. If we do not think about what our involvement is before we get plunged into it. If we don’t think before we get caught up in someone else’s problems we are likely to end up with the consequences that were meant for them while they are worry free with the fate that should have gone to us. Our intentions may be good but the results could be catastrophic. Sometimes for our benefit we have to just step back and bite our tongue unless we are to have the same problems that the person seeking the advice is having. Even though it may be a lot easier said than done.
