The Old Merchant's Two Wives

An aging merchant, his hair beginning to show streaks of grey among the black, had married twice — once to an older woman closer to his own age, and once, later in life, to a much younger wife. Each evening, he would sit between them while they groomed his hair, and each had a very different preference about how he ought to look.

The younger wife, embarrassed to be seen with a husband who looked so much older than her, plucked out his grey hairs one by one each night, wanting him to appear youthful and match her own age. The older wife, equally uncomfortable being married to a man who might appear younger and more vigorous than a woman her own age warranted, plucked out his black hairs instead, wanting him to look properly aged and dignified like herself.

Between the two of them, working in completely opposite directions every single night without either ever compromising, the merchant's head was entirely bald within a matter of weeks — neither young nor old, but stripped of every hair he had once possessed. Too late, he understood that trying to satisfy two people whose desires directly contradicted each other, without ever choosing a clear direction of his own, had cost him something neither of them had actually intended to take: everything at once.