You can’t please everyone!

Eleanor Roosevelt said it best with her quote “Do what you feel in your heart to be right, for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’re damned if you and damned if you don’t.” For more Eleanor Roosevelt quotes check out Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes.

Anyway! Every Tuesday I join a “Think Big” phone conference that I love, today’s topic was on self-expression and the fact that not everyone is always going to understand why you do things, and lots of people will criticize and/or try to give you their 2 cents. The conference leader, Michael Port, told a fable from Aesop that he put in his book “Book Yourself Solid“. So I totally had to share cause I love it…

The Old Man, the Boy, and the Donkey

An old man, a boy, and a donkey were going to town. The boy rode on the donkey and the old man walked beside him.

As they went along they passed some people who remarked it was a shame the old man was walking and the boy was riding.

The man and boy thought maybe the critics were right, so they changed positions.

Later, they passed some people who remarked, “What a shame! He makes that little boy walk.” They then decided they both would walk.

Soon they passed some more people who thought they were stupid to walk when they had a decent donkey to ride. So they both rode the donkey.

Now they passed some people who shamed them by saying how awful to put such a load on a poor donkey. The boy and man said they were probably right, so they decided to carry the donkey.

As they crossed the bridge, they lost their grip on the animal, and he fell into the river and drowned.

The moral of the story? If you try to please everyone, you might as well kiss your ass goodbye.

🙂