Why the tortoise?
I laughed when I first saw the picture of the tortoise with the helmet and the rocket strapped to its back. In a humorous way it reminded me when I have felt a bit beaten up by life after taking too much on. It was the rocket strapped to the back that compelled me to use this image here and on my book cover. Those of us who push and pull our way through life need rocket-like boosters to get ourselves through our many tasks and responsibilities. (Caffeine, sugar, long workdays, working on weekends and during vacations.) I thought many of my readers would also find it humorous and fitting.
It also reminded me of Aesop’s fable about the race between the tortoise and the hare. The story, as you probably recall, is about a hare who ridicules a slow-moving tortoise. Surprisingly, the “slower” tortoise challenges the “faster” hare to a race. When the race starts, the hare speeds off, leaving the tortoise far behind. Confident of winning, the hare decides to take a nap midway through the race. However, when it awakes, the hare finds the tortoise crawling slowly but steadily across the finish line.
Like the hare, we self-sacrificing, never-enough overachievers assume that at our hectic pace we can cross our ever-increasing number of finish lines. As with the hare, sometimes we find out too late we used the wrong strategy.
Maybe now is a good time to SAVE YOUR INNER TORTOISE.
