The Farmer Who Watched for a Second Rabbit

A farmer, working his field one afternoon, watched in astonishment as a rabbit, running at full speed, collided directly with an old tree stump at the edge of his land and dropped dead instantly from the impact, delivering the farmer an entirely free meal without the slightest effort on his part.

Delighted by this stroke of pure luck, the farmer abandoned his plow immediately and sat down beside the stump, convinced that if lucky accidents happened once, they would surely happen again if he simply waited patiently in the right spot. He returned to that same stump every single day, watching and waiting, while his once-thriving field grew overrun with weeds and his family's stores of grain dwindled steadily toward nothing.

Months passed without a second rabbit ever appearing, and the farmer, having traded his reliable, if unglamorous, livelihood for the fading hope of repeating a one-time accident, watched his family slide into genuine poverty. His neighbors, still tending their own fields faithfully through every season, prospered as they always had, while he learned, far too late, that a single stroke of luck is not a plan, and that mistaking coincidence for a repeatable strategy can cost you everything you once had.