Have you read a book recently? Let me suggest a very good one. One that is easy to read but leaves a profound message that is not easily
forgotten. This book is written by an Argentinean Doctor and Psychotherapist named Jorge Bucay. You may have read something from him and agree with me. His teachings are based on classic, modern, and popular tales. Some of his tales were restructured because he said, “The tales serve to put children to sleep and to awaken adults.” A very unique method of therapy. His tales were written to help everyone, to help us understand ourselves better, and can help us relate to others. Dr. Bucay has the virtue of simplifying things that seem complicated to some. This is just an example of his various publications.
Let Me Tell You… The Tales That Taught Me How to Live
In this book, Damian is an anxious guy that desires to know more about himself. In his quest he finds a very peculiar Psychoanalyst that helps him confront his life and finds answers through a personal method. Everyday he explains a tale. This is an example:
Damian says his performance is going downhill. He can’t concentrate and he finds himself unwilling. Jorge ‘el gordo’, as he is called, suggests that he takes a break, an idea that to Damian saw as almost impossible, because of a tale that Jorge told. There was a time a woodcutter presented himself for work at a timberland. The wage was good and the working conditions were even better.
The woodcutter would setout to do his best. The first day he presented himself to the foreman who gave him an ax and assigned him to a section in the forest. The enthusiastic man went out to cut in the forest. In one day he cut eighteen trees.
“I congratulate you,” said the foreman. “Keep up the good work.”
Encouraged by the words the foreman said, the woodcutter decided to be better the next day. That night he went to sleep early.
The next morning he woke up before anyone and he went to the forest. After all his hard work; he only cut fifteen trees. “I must be tired,” he said. He decided to go to sleep at sunset. In the morning he woke up determined to cut more than eighteen trees. That day he wasn’t able to even cut half of the eighteen.
The next day it was seven, after that five, and the last day he spent the whole afternoon trying to cut his second tree. Worried about what the foreman was going to say, the woodcutter went to the foreman to explain what was happening. The woodcutter swore and swore he was using all the strength he had.
The foreman asked him -“When was the last time you sharpened your ax?”
“Sharpened? I haven’t had time to sharpen my ax. I have been to busy trying to cut the trees!”
With this tale Dr. Bucay shows us that it doesn’t help to start off with great strength which will then become inadequate because the time to recover is never enough for optional performance. Resting, change of activities and doing other things is a way of sharpening our tools. Doing something forcefully is only a vain intent to replace a person’s voluntary inability in a certain moment.
The treasure of wisdom is definitely found in a good book…like this one.
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