The Farmer's Overloaded Cart

A farmer, loading his cart to overflowing with grain for a market several towns away, was warned by a passing traveler familiar with the route that the steep mountain pass ahead was notorious for breaking axles under exactly this kind of excessive weight, and that removing even a modest portion of the load now would spare him serious trouble later.

The farmer, proud of his careful planning and mildly insulted at being lectured by a stranger about his own trade, dismissed the warning outright, insisting his cart and oxen were more than capable and that he had made this exact journey many times before without incident. He continued on, fully loaded, without removing a single sack.

Exactly as warned, the overloaded axle snapped on the steepest section of the mountain pass, spilling his entire cargo across the rocky road, injuring one of his oxen in the process, and costing him two full days of delay while he arranged repairs and gathered his scattered grain, arriving at market so late that prices had already dropped and much of his harvest had spoiled in the meantime. The small adjustment that would have cost him almost nothing — removing a portion of the load and making two trips instead of one, or simply trusting a stranger's honest warning — would have saved him a loss many times greater than the pride he was so determined to protect by ignoring it.