Ox and Bags of Barley
Hey All!!
It’s been a while since I last shared a really nice story with you all. This story comes from the book
“Change; principles of problem formation and problem resolution” - By Paul Watzlawick, John H. Weakland, Richard Fisch
Nooo… I didn’t read the book.. Our educator did today.. (For ‘Family and Relationship Counselling’)
I’m going to re-tell it to the best of my abilities and memory strength.. I will have changed the names because I can’t remember exactly what they were… (I almost fell asleep in class.. not because it was boring, but I was just soooo tired from not being able to sleep… how hot is MELBOURNE lately!) (But loving the STORM and rain!! I went for a warm fully-clothed shower earlier! LOL)
Anyway..and so the story goes….
“During the 13th century, the Duchess of Tyrol, Marghareta Maultasch, circled the caste of Nerchem, somewhere in Europe of those days. Nerchem was a highrised fortress, standing on top of a mountain above the valley. The Dutchess knew that there was no way that she could directly attach the castle, and thus she came up with her tactic to seige the castle and wait for them to exhaust their food supply and surrender.
As the Dutchess has predicted, the defenders of Nerchem had almost depleted their food supplies and was down to their last ox and had only two bags or barley corn left. The Dutchess’ food supply was also slowly diminishing, and her troops were beginning to be unruly - there seemed to be no end ot the siege and she had other military business (cities to invade) to do.
By now the commandant of the castle had decided upon a desperate course of action - which seemed quite foolish and stupid by his men. He ordered the last ox be slaughters, had its abdomen emptied and filled with the last two bags of barley and then ordered his men throw the carcess down to the steep cliff, onto the meadow just in front of the Dutchess.
Upon receiving the scornful message from the castle above, the discouraged Dutches abandoned the siege and moved on. The castle was saved.”
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I bet by now you’re thinking.. What??!
Don’t worry … I thought the same thing at first. Why would you want to waste your last supply.
Though, that is change. That is what change is.
On a rational and logical manner, we would probably save the ox and two bags of barley, rationed out the food, and just had bits of the food each day.. Though, how long will we last and go hungry before the ox and barley was finished?
The commandant took a risk, and decided to do the opposite of what was the norm, threw over the ox and barley to show the Dutchess that the castle had so much food that they could afford to throw over an ox filled with barley.
Ahhhh…. What does this story teach us??
That in order to change, we need to do the opposite of what we’ve been doing.
Think about it . . . .