Leading from the Middle

Caption: Keep on rollin’
“There was a beetle who came forth fully sated from his dung heap and saw an eagle flying high up in the air, crossing a great stretch of the sky in a brief stretch of time. The beetle then felt contempt for his own way of life and declared to his fellow beetles, 'Look at that eagle, who is so swift on the wing and so strongly built, equipped with such a savage beak and talons! If she wants, she can soar up to the clouds and plunge downwards as fast as she likes. Meanwhile, we beetles suffer from a sorry state of affairs, being not quite bugs and not quite birds. But my voice is no less pleasant than the eagle's cry, and her sheen does not outshine my own. I will not crawl around in the dung any more! From now on I will consort with the birds and fly around with them everywhere, joining their society!' The beetle then rose into the sky, emitting a song that was nothing more than a loathsome sort of buzzing. As he tried to follow the eagle into the upper air, he was unable to endure the strong winds. He fell to the ground, shaken and exhausted, far away from his home. Facing starvation, the sad beetle said, 'I don't care if they call me a bug or a bird, if only I can get back home to my dung heap!' 
Disaster awaits the arrogant person who puts on airs: he will fail to get promoted and will lose his former position as well.”

The concluding moral evokes, for me, the vainly envious worker who wants a higher job in spite of a lack of experience or qualifications. There’s no question he’d be in over his head, but that does not get in the way of his ambition: “The eagle (the leader) has all the perks, why not me?”
I recall in my study of a woman’s basketball team (Chapter 8)
that one of the players – who was not happy with “riding the pine” as a sub - left the program to go to another team. There she was promised a starring role; no more waiting on the bench! Alas, her inconsistent play – flashes of brilliance followed by stretches of mishandling the ball – got worse due to the extra stress of being a starter/leader.
Yet, there’s something to be said about climbing out of a seeming “dung-heap” to higher levels, to taking a chance, to betting on your own success.
Or, we may choose a prestigious job that pays well but offers few challenges. It’s routine and comfortable, but, to our dismay, the organization likes the status quo: routine and comfortable! And, it resents being reminded about its shortcomings. Let’s hope, like the beetle, when we fall back to earth, to reality, we’re wiser for when the next opportunity comes knocking.

*Source: Aesop's Fables. A new translation by Laura Gibbs. Oxford University Press (World's Classics): Oxford, 2002.

 

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