A Persian Story of the Jumping Frogs

A group of frogs were traveling through the woods, and two of them fell into a deep pit. All the other frogs gathered around the pit. When they saw how deep the pit was, they told the two frogs that they were as good as dead.

The two frogs ignored the comments and tried to jump up out of the pit with all of their might. The other frogs kept telling them to stop, that they were as good as dead.

Finally, one of the frogs took heed to what the other frogs were saying and gave up. He fell down and died.

The other frog continued to jump as hard as he could. Once again, the crowd of frogs yelled at him to stop the pain and just die. He jumped even harder and finally made it out.

This frog, though, was deaf, unable to hear the others plea. He thought they were encouraging him the entire time.

This story teaches us two lessons:

There is power of life and death in the tongue. An encouraging word to someone who is down can lift them up and help them make it through the day.

A destructive word to someone who is down can be what it takes to kill them.

Something2Share:

How true it is that at time we need to turn our deaf ears to what others say. Don’t listen to them. They are not your true friends but enemies in disguise. When they speak negative words to you, you can sense it that they are taking the opportunity of your bad situation to discourage you, to pinch you down, to make you more depressed, and to destroy you in the end. (They are just like the group of frogs telling the 2 poor frogs fell into a deep pit to give up hope and die.)

There are also people who like to gossip, spread rumor and carry tales about you in the company. Do not be one of them. Always believe the principle of “Do right fear no man but fear God.” In the end, you will be blessed and you will be a blessing to others.

The worst that you could have encountered is one of your colleagues who had told unfounded lies to your boss so that you are no longer stand in his way for his promotion in the company. That’s the evil intention in him. In Chinese, such person is known as 小人 (xiao ren : wicked man). He is 狼披羊皮（lang pi yang pi : a “wolf” putting on the “sheep’s skin”). Beware of this kind of person and keep a distance from him. Don’t ever associate with him.

God wants us to be good and not to be wicked. He wants us to be righteous gentlemen showing tender care to others with love. When we can speak words of encouragement, we are able to help others and lift them up. Unlike the wicked men, they speak words of condemn to drag people down.

Positively speaking, by constant sharing and keep on motivating others, we are able to turn "give up" into "take up", "misery" into "hope", "loss" into "win", "failure" into "success" and "unhappiness" into "joy"!