‘The Hare and The Tortoise’ An Allegory About Life?

In Aesop’s tale about the Hare and the Tortoise, the hare outshone.

(Bonus: Check out previously unpublished allegorical poem at the end.)

What does that mean for us?

If I were to ask you which animal in the world is the fastest, it’s probable you’d come up with the cheetah, the fastest land animal in the world. It’s a big cat that takes three seconds to go from the speed of nought, to the speed of 68 miles per hour, a big cat that can turn in mid-air while sprinting, a seriously impressive cat.

And then, if I asked you which is the faster, a hare or a tortoise, you would all agree that the hare wins hands down.

We base that conclusion on the impressive short-term bound of the hare, from which it has to recover. So perhaps all is not as we imagine.

Well, someone’s actually studied that…

Adrian Bejan, professor of Mechanical Engineering at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, conducted a study which was published in the Scientific Reports journal.

His research came up with a very different result. When the movements of specific animals were averaged out over a lifetime, it was discovered that the fastest animals are often the slowest.

Think about that for a moment!

Maybe Aesop was ahead of the pack when he wrote his fable all those years ago.

Was he talking about habits by any chance?

Teachers who read this story to young children often end up explaining to them that the lesson learned is that, slow and steady wins the race.

For five or six year olds that is a reasonable deduction.

But it runs deeper than that…

The story about the Hare and the Tortoise is not as simple as we first imagine.

The tale is really an allegory, a simple story on the surface, with a deeper meaning running beneath.

The hidden meaning here is very much about we humans, that some people are born with natural talents that could take them anywhere, if used wisely, but waste them due to idleness or laziness.

Others work slowly and methodically, and are often the people who produce the best results.

The tortoise’s character is meant to show how despite his sluggishness, and lack of natural speed, it was his perseverance, hard work, and focus that allowed him to win the race, that is, to finish off what he set out to do.

When we read this fable as adults, the message is instantly clear. We easily see both the tortoise and hare in people we know in real life.

The race is not really a race at all. Read allegorically, it is actually a moral about life itself.

The story expresses the belief that in life, the slow and steady, those with attention to detail, the ethical and upstanding, will, at the end of the day, always top the quick and mercurial, when all’s said and done.

The fable in fact, is very much about principled behaviour

Have a think about the hare.

He truly is a fickle character. He knows his ability. He stands apart from the tortoise in physical talent, but he underestimates the tortoise. The very notion that a sluggish animal like him could even think about challenging a hare, is a joke.

So, he does what all conceited people do, takes the challenge in his stride, easily outpaces the tortoise in the first instance, and lets his guard down by having a sleep.

Consequently, he loses the race.

Those who identify with the tortoise, the methodical and thorough, the highly-ethical, care not for the capricious. They keep their end goals in sight, and work diligently towards them.

The fact is, it doesn’t matter who does what job.

It matters not what your station in life is.

What does matter however, is that the job you have been commissioned to do, is done well. Principled action is the quality that will see you being valued, and chosen, over others.

I’ve added a little allegorical poem