Extra Reading Diary: Aesop's Fables (Jacobs)

My Favorite Stories from Aesop's Fables (Jacobs)

Lions, Part 1: My favorite story was Androcles and the Lion, which was about a runaway slave named Androcles and a Lion. Androcles sees a Lion and notices it is injured so he kindly went to help. There was a thorn in his paw, so he pulled it out and became friends with the Lion. Androcles was very courageous for walking up to a Lion, but it showed how good of a person he was. What really surprised me was what happened after the Lion and Androcles were captured. I thought the Lion would surely kill him when hungry because it is in his nature to hunt. To my surprise, the Lion licked his hand and refused to eat him. I enjoy happy stories and this showed that good things happen if you are kind.

Foxes, Part 2:  I really liked The Fox Without a Tail by Jacobs, where a fox loses its tail in a trap and tries to convince all the other foxes to get rid of theirs because it is useless. Although the fox makes some good points, pointing out "how inconvenient a tail was when they were pursued by their enemies, the dogs; how much it was in the way when they desired to sit down and hold a friendly conversation with one another." This all may be true, but it is obvious he wouldn't being suggesting this if he still had his tail. The other foxes are smart for not listening because he is only giving the advice that benefits him. 

(The Fox Without a Tail)

Wolves: The Dog and the Wolf was great, but I find that I can really argue both ways about the moral of the story. I interpreted it as the dog has a good paying job that he doesn't enjoy, where the wolf would rather do what he loves and sacrifice money. I'm not sure why I associated it with a career, as it can probably be interpreted many ways, but I hear a lot of my friends saying they would rather be poor and happy than wealthy and unhappy. In my opinion, you can choose to either live to work or work to live, and I choose too work to live while making money. You don't have to love your job to be happy, which can be seen by the dog.

Dogs and Cats: I enjoyed the story of The Fox and the Cat. Sometimes I can be indecisive, especially when there are a lot of options. It is better to know what you're going to do before you have to do it. The cat is right when it says, "Better one safe way than a hundred on which you cannot reckon." The fox seems to be the jack of all trades, but master of none. It is also well researched that the most successful people where the same thing everyday because they don't want to use any of their decision making or brainpower just to pick what to wear. Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg are good examples of this, and I can relate this story to picking what to wear.