An EFT Parable ~ The Man and The Rocks

There was a man who was proud of his job. He did the same as his father and his father’s father before him. Every day, he pushed and sweated and grunted and rolled a huge boulder to the top of a very steep hill. He was doing well, managing on average one stone per day. At the end of his week’s work, he proudly surveyed the results of all his efforts – a neat row of 5 huge boulders sitting at the prow of the hill. He had developed a tanned and muscular body of which he was very proud too and he despised the weaklings who toiled in the fields below. They weren’t capable of such extreme feats of strength and willpower as his. Indeed, there was no one in the town who could match him.

One day, on a particularly hot and dry Friday afternoon, he sweated and toiled his way slowly but persistently up the hill, pushing the last boulder of the week. Gasping, he pushed it over the edge of the path and into its resting place. When he wiped the sweat from his eyes, and recovered his breath, he looked up to see a particularly frail old man standing next to his 5 boulders. He was almost just skin and bone, and had a pale and pasty look that spoke of someone who wasn’t outdoors much. He was probably one of those people who thought that thinking passed as a meaningful activity by which to live his life, thought the strong man.

After the initial pleasantries, and a long silence, he said: “See how strong I am, I have done my week’s work and am proud of what I have to show for it – how about you?”

The skinny man replied, “Is this what you do all week?”

“Of course”, the strong man replied, “and very proud of it I am too. There’s no one in this town who can best me and I can go home every night and feel very satisfied with my achievements and that’s the most important thing to me about my work, that I feel satisfied at the end of each day. ”

“So,” said the skinny man thoughtfully, “if I could show you a way to move twice as many rocks in half the time, would you like that.”

“You bet”, replied the strong man, “but look at you, you have no muscles and your hands look as though they’ve never seen a hard day’s work in your life. What could you possibly do to beat me? After all, I’ve done this work for years, and my daddy and my granddaddy before me – if there was a way to do it faster, we’d surely have come across it by now.”

The skinny man looked puzzled, but remained silent, thinking quietly. Then, after a while, without saying anything further, he set off down the hill. Curious, the strong man watched as the skinny man scanned the path carefully, almost bent double with his nose aimed at the ground. Occasionally he stopped and picked something up and moved it off the path. Sometimes he kicked at the turf then flattened it with his foot. Sometimes he appeared to be sweeping the path.

When he eventually returned to the top of the hill, the strong man had packed up and was just about to set off home. What he saw next, stopped him in his tracks. The skinny man had cut himself a long and stout wooden stick and was proceeding to insert it under the first in line of five boulders. With a small thrust from his weak-looking shoulders, he set the boulder in motion. It moved slowly at first, its progress almost invisible, but then when it tipped over the brow of the hill and settled onto the path, it started to pick up momentum.

The skinny man didn’t stop to watch it all the way to the bottom before returning to the second boulder and beginning to lever this one into motion too. Within a few minutes, he had sent all five of the huge boulders rolling down the hill, where they all settled neatly together in the valley below.

The strong man became angry, and began to shout at and berate the skinny man for ruining all his hard work. After all, it had taken him all week and much hard sweat and muscle power to move those boulders up the hill.

“It’s taken me all week to get those damn boulders up here and here you are, just skin and bones, and you’ve undone all my work in less than half an hour. Just who do you think you are?”

The skinny man just smiled gently and waited until the tirade quietened.

“Well,” he said, “I thought that, as you valued your sense of achievement above all else, you might appreciate a little idea of mine. I’ve just demonstrated how you can save yourself so much time and energy and get the same result in a fraction of the time.”

“But they’re all at the bottom of the hill!” spluttered the strong man.

“Ah, so it isn’t the achievement you value, but the outcome, is it?” replied the skinny man.

The strong man stopped and thought. Then, becoming angry again, he retorted
“ But where’s the satisfaction in that! I toil all week and that’s why I feel so proud of my efforts”

“Ah, so it really isn’t the achievement you value, but the effort, is it?” replied the skinny man.

“Well, if that’s the case, please forget I was ever here. Goodbye and good luck”. And with that, he sauntered off down the hill, singing to himself.

If you haven’t got it, EFT comes in where the skinny man sits and thinks, then removes all the blockages on the path so that when he pushes the stone it rolls smoothly down the hill.