The Fisherman's Pipe
Aesop's Fables · 1 min read
A fisherman skilled at playing the pipe had an idea he thought quite clever: rather than going through the trouble of casting and hauling nets, he would simply stand at the water's edge and play beautiful, enchanting music, confident the fish would be so charmed that they would leap out of the water and dance right onto the shore for him.
He played for a long while, pouring all his skill into the sweetest tune he knew, but the fish in the water continued about their business entirely unmoved, not one of them so much as surfacing to listen. Frustrated and puzzled by their indifference, he eventually gave up the music and simply cast his net into the water instead, hauling in a generous catch of wriggling, thrashing fish within minutes.
As he watched them flopping and dancing helplessly on the shore now that they were caught, he remarked wryly, "How strange — you wouldn't dance for me when I played so sweetly and asked nothing of you, yet now, with no music at all, here you are dancing after all." The fish, of course, could not answer him, but the lesson was plain to anyone watching: there is a right tool and a right moment for every task, and charm alone rarely accomplishes what direct, appropriate action does.
Moral of the story
There is a right tool and a right moment for every task — charm alone rarely accomplishes what direct action does.