The Three Impossibly Fussy Brahmins

Three learned Brahmins, famous across the kingdom for being extraordinarily particular, traveled together to a royal feast, each one's fussiness more extreme than the last.

The first refused to eat any rice unless it had been cooked in water fetched that same morning from a river at least a mile distant, insisting anything closer tasted "impure" to his refined palate. The second refused to sit on any cushion that had been touched by another guest beforehand, demanding a freshly stuffed one be made specifically for him alone. The third refused to sleep in any bed unless it stood on a floor swept exactly nine times, no more and no fewer, by a servant of a particular caste.

At the feast itself, all three grew so consumed with policing these exacting standards — sending dishes back, refusing seats, delaying the entire banquet for hours — that they missed the meal entirely while everyone else, far less particular, ate well and enjoyed the evening. The king, watching the spectacle, remarked to his court that a mind too fussy to accept anything less than perfect often ends up with nothing at all, while a mind willing to enjoy what is simply good misses far less of life.