Slow and Steady Does NOT Win the Race

Remember the story of the tortoise (hereby referred to as turtle) and the hare(hereby referred to as rabbit)? You know, the rabbit and the turtle decide to race. The rabbit is so sure he's gonna win. The rabbit was winning. The rabbit takes a nap. The rabbit doesn't win, and the story ends with the proverb "slow and steady wins the race." Generally, the story is told with a bit more flourish, but I wrote it that way to highlight my point, which is that we look to the wrong character for the lesson in this story.

Be real with yourself. Logically, in a race of speed, the speedier racer will win. That's how it was designed and that's how it works in real life. The saying at the end of the story implies the opposite, that the turtle won the race by his own doing, and that one will win in life by being slow and steady. This is not at all the case.

The real moral of the story is, "Finish what you start and don't be a dummy." Really, the rabbit probably could have won the race and took another lap before the tortoise even got half way down the track. The ONLY reason the turtle won is because the rabbit stopped running. Of course the rabbit was cocky/foolish enough to believe that he could stop, take a nap, and still win (and overestimating your skills/underestimating your opposition is another lesson), but if he'd had the tenacity, or at least the intelligence, to just go ahead and finish the race then the tortoise wouldn't have even come close to winning.

So take that as the real lesson. Don't set out to be the slow turtle in the story, just strive to not be as stupid as the rabbit was and you'll be fine. You can skip being slow (though, I would recommend you take the advice about steadiness; it's good to be consistent), so long as you finish what you start. Do be fast, though, because slow and steady does NOT win the race.

Points: The usual for reading the whole thing. +10 for agreeing with me. Just to see who reads these, total your existence points so far and report that number to me and you can have 200 more.

JOSH, THE SHERM