Safety Tidbits: 1-27

The Young Boy and The Rattlesnake

There was a young Native American boy, and tribal custom was to send young men out into the wilderness at the age of fifteen to fend for themselves. So, the young man set off on his journey. After thirty days all the men in the tribe would come and find him in the wilderness and bring him back and initiate him into the tribe … into full adulthood.

He wandered in the wilderness and for the first few days there were no problems, there was plenty of food and comfortable places to sleep. On the eighth day, he found no food so he went to bed hungry. The next few days were the same – the boy found no food, at all. He hadn’t eaten for several days he was starving when he came to a mountain. He thought to himself, “Perhaps if I wander up that mountain, I will find some food.”

So, the boy began to climb, but when he got to the top of the mountain he found no food. Then a rattlesnake came across the path in front of him. The boy saw the snake and the snake saw the boy. They stood head to head and stared at each other for a moment, then the snake said to the boy, “I’m lost up here in the mountain and cannot find my way down. Please, will you show me my way to the bottom of the mountain?”

The boy said, “No, I know what you are, you’re a rattlesnake, and at any moment you could strike out and bite me and I would fall to the ground. Your bite could kill me.”

The snake replied, “Boy, you look very hungry.”  The boy said, “I am hungry. I haven’t eaten for many days.”

The snake said, “If you lead me down the mountain, I will lead you to food in return.”

The boy replied, “No, I know what you are, you’re a rattlesnake, and at any moment you could strike out, bite me, and kill me.”

The snake responded, “Boy, if you lead me down the mountain, I promise you I will lead you to food, and I promise you, I will not hurt you.”

The boy said to the snake, “Do you promise?”  The snake said, “I do.”

So the boy began to lead the snake down the mountain, and when they got to the bottom of the mountain the snake lead the boy to food. All types of food. The boy ate and he drank and he felt like a king.

The snake danced and the boy watched the snake dance. The snake was so beautiful when it danced. Then the boy decided he would like to dance, so the boy danced … and the snake danced … and they ate some more … and they drank some more … and the boy felt like king of the world.

Then, all of a sudden, the snake struck out and bit the boy! The boy fell to the ground in the most intense pain and he screamed and he cried … and the snake slithered over to the boy and the boy looked at the snake and the snake looked at the boy … and the boy screamed at the snake. He said, “YOU PROMISED … YOU PROMISED YOU WOULDN’T HURT ME.”

The snake looked calmly into the boy’s eyes and he said, “You KNEW what I was when you picked me up.”

 Most of us have rattlesnakes that we deal with, regularly, and we know it…

We have to be careful or they can back us into a corner or in some other way prevent us from successfully completing our journey! Are there rattlesnakes in your life that, sooner or later, will turn on you and strike you down? If so, what are doing to protect yourself?

And a bonus quote from Neal A. Maxwell:

We should certainly count our blessings, but we should also make our blessings count. 

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Thanks for the share, WK!