“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”—Helen Keller
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The phrase “All for one, one for all” serves as the guiding principle of the three musketeers in Alexandre Dumas’s renowned novel. This saying came to mind after I encountered the following story, which was circulated on social media. I encourage you to read it, and I am confident you will share my perspective:
A mouse peered through a gap in the wall and observed the farmer and his wife unboxing a package. “What food could this possibly hold?” the mouse pondered. However, his excitement turned to despair upon discovering that the contents were a mousetrap.
Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse urgently warned the other animals, “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!” The chicken, scratching the ground, raised her head and replied, “Dear Mouse, I understand your distress, but this matter does not concern me. I cannot afford to be troubled by it.”
Next, the mouse approached the pig and exclaimed, “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!” The pig expressed sympathy but added, “I truly regret your plight, Mr. Mouse, yet there is little I can do except keep you in my thoughts. You are in my prayers.”
The mouse then sought out the cow, stating, “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!” The indifferent cow responded, “I’m sorry to hear that, Mr. Mouse, but it does not affect me.”
With a heavy heart, the mouse returned to the house, resigned to confront the farmer’s mousetrap alone.
That very night, a sound echoed through the house, resembling the snap of a mousetrap. The farmer’s wife hurried to investigate, but in the darkness, she failed to realize that it was a venomous snake whose tail had been ensnared.
The snake bit the farmer’s wife, prompting the farmer to rush her to the hospital. Upon her return, she was afflicted with a fever. It is widely known that fresh chicken soup is a remedy for fever, leading the farmer to take his hatchet to the farmyard in search of the soup’s primary ingredient. Farewell, chicken!
The farmer’s wife continued to suffer from her illness, prompting friends and neighbors to gather and keep her company around the clock. In order to provide sustenance for them, the farmer made the difficult decision to butcher the pig. Goodbye, pig!
Regrettably, the farmer’s wife did not recover; she passed away a month after being bitten by a snake. The turnout for her funeral was so large that the farmer had to slaughter the cow to ensure there was enough meat for all the attendees.
Observing this from his small crevice in the wall, the mouse felt a profound sense of sorrow.
The narrative, shared with me by a friend, concluded with a poignant reminder: “Thus, the next time you learn of someone facing difficulties and think it does not affect you, remember that when one individual is in peril, we are all at risk. We are all part of this journey called life, and it is essential that we look out for one another and strive to offer support.”
This brings us to another story which happened to Zig Ziglar, chairman of the Zig Ziglar Corporation, whose goal is to help people more fully utilize their physical, mental and spiritual resources.
“Several years ago, I was to appear on a late-night television show in New York City. For some strange reason, they wanted me in the studio that afternoon at 4:30. I walked in and was stunned by the small size of the reception area. It contained a couch for three, a chair for one, a sink, a refrigerator, and a coffee maker.”
As Zig sat down, a woman walked in, shook her head, and said, “Nobody makes any coffee except me!” She got busy and started a fresh pot of coffee. A few minutes later, a guy walked in and, following the same procedure, said, “I can’t believe it! This place would be a pigpen if it weren’t for me! I’m the only person who ever does any cleanup.”
And he cleaned up the small area. Still another woman walked in and complained, “Nobody ever puts anything up but me,” and she proceeded to put things away.
Zig commented later on: “All three of those people sincerely felt they were the only ones who ever did anything. Each one did a private halo adjustment in going through the process of making up, cleaning up, or putting up. Is that the way it is in your company, where ‘nobody does anything,’ but everybody thinks he or she is the only one who actually works?”
American scientist Albert Einstein once said, “A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.”
No one accomplishes anything without other people. “No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main,” John Donne penned. The words of Adlai E. Stevenson is also a good reminder: “We travel together, passengers on a little spaceship, dependent on its vulnerable reserves of air and soil, all committed, for our safety, to its security and peace. Preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work and the love we give our fragile craft.”
Fred A. Allen surmised, “It is probably not love that makes the world go around, but rather those mutually supportive alliances through which partners recognize their dependence on each other for the achievement of shared and private goals.”
“Everything in the world we want to do or get done, we must do with and through people,” said Earl Nightingale. And it is only by helping others that you also help yourself.
