One day, the king was very full as a result of eating too much, the advisor said: "It might be good for you, your majesty."
Another day, the king couldn't sleep well and felt really bad the next morning. Yet again the advisor said: "It might be good for you, your majesty."
The king could never understand why was it that the advisor kept saying that.
When the king accidentally chopped off his little toe one day, with no surprise the advisor said it again: "It might be good for you, your majesty."
This time the king got really annoyed and roared: "How on earth losing a toe might be good for me? You shall be imprisoned INDEFINITELY for giving such UNCONSTRUCTIVE advice!"
The advisor was then kept in a small cell which had totally no windows, and was only provided a meal and three glasses of water each day.
But only god knows why, the advisor still said: "Thank you, my lord. It might be good for ME."
Some months later, the king went hunting with some friends. Somehow they went different ways and lost each other after a while.
The king ended up bumping into a cannibal tribe and got captured by the cannibals, unfortunately. They tied him up and started performing some rituals before cooking him.
Just when they were about to throw the king into the big pot with boiling water, the tribe leader raised his hand and said: "Examine him, for one last time."
So the retinues began to check the king thoroughly. First with the head, then face, neck, shoulders, chest, stomach, arms, hands, between his legs, back, thighs, calves...and finally the feet.
One of them shouted out immediately: "Oh no, he is missing a toe!"
With great anger, the tribe leader instructed: "Release him, we don't want anything INCOMPLETE!"
The king quickly ran away from the tribe and finally found his way back to his castle.
Guess what, the first thing he did was releasing the advisor.
"I never knew you are so wise," asked the king, "How did you manage to predict what would happen today when I lost my toe?"
"I didn't exactly see what was coming for you, your majesty. I just knew 'It might be good for you', and you only know why is it GOOD when the moment is RIGHT, your majesty," the advisor answered.
The king wasn't quite impressed and continued asking: "Well, why did you say it might be good for YOU when I put you in jail then?"
Smiling meaningfully, the advisor replied: "Imagine if I wasn't put in jail, would I then survive from the cannibals if I followed you for the hunting today, like I always did? So it was, indeed, good for me, your majesty."
This wonderful story was shared by a good friend some time ago. I was really impressed the first time I heard it.
However, for some reasons, I have never been able to tell the complete story to others since then. So I guess its a good idea to write it down before it happens again. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment