The Council of Mice

A colony of mice, terrorized for months by an unusually silent and cunning cat who kept picking them off one by one without any warning of her approach, finally called an emergency council to devise a permanent solution to the crisis threatening their entire community.

Many ideas were proposed and dismissed as impractical, until a clever young mouse rose with what seemed like a stroke of genius: they should tie a small bell around the cat's neck, so that its gentle ringing would warn every mouse in earshot of her approach long before she came close enough to strike, giving them all ample time to flee to safety. The assembly erupted in enthusiastic applause, celebrating what seemed like the perfect, elegant answer to their problem at last.

As the excitement settled, an old, quiet mouse who had said nothing throughout the meeting finally raised a single question that brought the celebration to an abrupt halt: "The plan is excellent — but which one of us will actually walk up to the cat and tie the bell around her neck?" No one volunteered. No one even attempted an answer. The brilliant plan, so easy to praise in the abstract, proved to have never once been examined for who would bear its very real, very dangerous cost — a lesson the colony carried forward long after the meeting ended: a clever idea is worth nothing until someone has actually worked out who will be the one to carry it out.