Today my mother spoke to me about a very beautiful story that made me think many things, I want to share the story and my reflection.
The Empty Wagon
The one who knows, tends to speak little; He who speaks a lot, often knows little. The one who delves into things, tends to speak prudently and with moderation
I walked slowly with my father, when he stopped at a bend and, after a little silence, he asked me: "Besides the song of the Birds, do you hear anything else?" Agucéed his ear and answered, "I hear the noise of a wagon." "That's it," said my father, "a wagon, but an empty wagon." I asked my father, "How do you know it's empty, if we haven't seen it yet?" Then my father replied, "It is very easy to know when a wagon is empty, because of the noise." "The more empty the wagon goes, the greater the noise it makes."
I became an adult, and now, when I see a person talking too much, interrupting the conversation, being inopportune or arrogant, bragging about what he has or what he is, showing himself arrogant or belittling others, I have the impression of hearing Again my father's voice saying, "The emptier the wagon goes, the greater the noise it makes." Humility silences our virtues and allows others to discover them, and no one is more empty than the one who is full of himself.
It is interesting the message that leaves us of this old story. When we imagine the passage of a wagon full of load, striving, silent, a little sunk by the weight it carries, that image conveys a sense of fullness and silence. And something similar happens to people. There are lives that are full of content, effort and meaning. They are usually active and struggling lives, but they make little noise. These are lives that do not fit with the grand of activity, nor with the excesses of personal protagonism, nor with the individualism that tends to betray hidden lacks of righteousness and sense of service.
I have the conviction that pride is the key to almost all human conflicts. Forms of pride more or less elaborate, more primary or more subtle, but always pride is at the root of the attitudes that provoke them. In the simplest people, it shows up right away. In the smartest, it costs a little more, because in time they learn to disguise it.
When we see that around a person the conflicts tend to fester, or that arise distancings or foolish misunderstandings, or that around them the human teams are disbanded or broken, almost always is behind that vain and histrionic of the pride. It can take many forms, but they are almost always variants of the same: this somewhat ridiculous zeal to record the merit itself, the morbid susceptibility that those who feel constantly aggrieved by authentic simplicity, the struggles and disagreements Absurd for a small share of personal protagonism, the acknowledgements demanded and accounted for, the AIDS seemingly selfless but then claim a perpetual submission, the advice given with liberal air but then feel like a Treason not to be followed. All this is usually woven and communicated by the mailing thread of pride, and identified by the lack of draught and inner silence.
The one who knows, tends to speak little; He who speaks a lot, often knows little. He who delves into things, tends to speak prudently and with moderation. Those who speak lightly and make hasty judgments about people or affairs often talk too much. They are people who, with their empty souls, make the environment squeak in their surroundings, like empty wagons. And Squeak especially because they lack the aplomb of the truth. For the truth, especially in the most patent and immediate things, is what most enerva the proud, who sees the truth there, independent of him, imposing all the weight of his intellectual and moral demands. Because the truth annoys your constant pursuit of personal satisfaction, and that does not support it.