The Three Answers, A Story About The Difference
This story about difference is an adaptation of a tale by Leo Tolstoy. It was a village where there were harsh winters, with snow every day and temperatures that made all the locals shiver.
In this place lived a couple who had no children. Both were very cautious. Even though they covered themselves, they almost never managed to get warm enough to feel good. They were both fed up with this situation but didn’t know what to do.
One of their neighbors, on the other hand, had a large house and a large family. He never complained about the cold. On the contrary, he spent warm evenings in winter. Noticing this, the couple couldn’t help but wonder why they were cold and not him.
The neighbor answered them kindly. Since it was very cold in the village, he had taken the precaution of insulating the walls and the roof with a wood which maintains the heat well. Maybe it would work for them too.
Changes in the house
The couple got it into their heads that their walls and roof were, in reality, very fragile. They saved that way for a while. As soon as they had sufficient money, they reinforced their house with beautiful wooden beams.
Summer came and they began to feel unbearable heat. The only way to breathe was to get out of the house since the inside was an oven. They thought that was the price to pay for having a warm house in the winter.
Nonetheless, the difference story says winter came but the warmth they expected was not there. They no longer shivered from the cold, but they were still cold. Annoyed by the situation, they visited their neighbor again to get an answer.
A second response
The couple asked their neighbor again. The latter thinks about it and tells them that maybe they need a good stove. They could thus remove the beams and they would be less hot in summer without being cold in winter.
The husband saw the neighbor’s stove and picked up the model to buy the same. He was huge and fabulous. It gave off a very pleasant heat. What the neighbor had told them was perfectly reasonable. Buying an identical stove would undoubtedly solve their problem.
The couple saved again for a while. In the end, they managed to buy a stove as big as the neighbor’s. So they removed the insulation wood and stacked it outside. The following winter, for the first time, they did not feel cold, burning all the wood they had piled up.
A story about the difference
A new summer arrived. As expected, the house was cool and comfortable. The couple were happy. Before the following winter, they were able to store a good quantity of wood. In the end, the stove was giant and needed constant power.
Winter came along with another disappointment. The wood they had stored lasted only a few weeks. So the husband removed a few more logs from the house and burned them in the stove. He started over several times. Obviously, the more beams he removed, the colder it got.
The moment came when he had practically removed the beams from one of the walls. They continued with the roof. The neighbor, who noticed the situation, got worried and went to talk with the couple. He explained to them that destroying the house to power the stove didn’t make sense. If they no longer had a roof, the stove would be incapable of preventing them from freezing to death.
The couple were annoyed. They had followed their neighbor’s advice and they were unable to resolve their problems. What did he want to advise them now? The neighbor then gave them a third answer. His house was large and had large windows. That is why it was not hot there in summer. It was also for this reason that he needed a large stove. The difficulty was this: they had accepted solutions that were made for other problems.
Our thoughts Discover this story of justice illustrated by the onion that explains why it is important to learn to observe nature.
