"The North Wind and the Sun"

Over the last several days the weather has proved at times both windy and cold, and sunny and warm. To this I might ascribe the sudden remembrance of a story I haven't heard in nearly 20 years, which goes something like this:

"The North Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger, when a traveler came along wrapped in a warm cloak.They agreed that the one who first succeeded in making the traveler take his cloak off should be considered stronger than the other. Then the North Wind blew as hard as he could, but the more he blew the more closely did the traveler fold his cloak around him;and at last the North Wind gave up the attempt. Then the Sun shined out warmly, and immediately the traveler took off his cloak. And so the North Wind was obliged to confess that the Sun was the stronger of the two" (source).

I did not know it at the time, but the tale is one of Aesop's Fables, a collection of stories compiled by the ancient Greek slave Aesop sometime around 600 BCE. A moral tale at its root, the story of the North Wind and the Sun provides an illuminating analogy of the power a gentle and kind approach toward others in life can have. 

As a youngster I liked it, and as young man I like it still. Gentleness overcomes what blowhards and brute force could not. Isn't that something? A story to remember I think.

Happy Saturday, friends :)