The Parable of the Weakest Link

In the olden days, there was a town called Lernuscus who one day found itself under the threat of being attacked by the faraway town of Hidarabad. But since it would take the Hidarabanians still 30 days to reach them, they decided to prepare themselves for the impending war.

They started to arm themselves and stock on supplies and discuss among themselves how to best ward off the enemy's attack. On the second day however, some people noticed that there was a group of people who they perceived were not contributing as much to the effort as they were expecting so the former met among themselves to address their perceived problem.

"This group will not be able to help us any in our fight against the Hidarabanians. I suggest we kill them all before they become our liability."

So they gathered the latter group and lined them up against the wall and started shooting them until they all fell down.

The next day, however, another group began seeing still another group in their midst as a weak link in their preparations. So they convened among themselves and again decided to dispose of all of these people by killing them.

And so it went on that each day as each perceived weak link was eliminated, their attention would be drawn to somebody else as the next weak link.

A day before the Hidarabanians were to arrive, there were only two persons left in Lernuscus. They were still blaming each other and calling each other a liability. They finally decided to end their discussion in a duel where both of them died.

When the Hidarabanians finally came to Lernuscus, they were surprised to find that there was no Lernuscan left to fight them and the town was completely theirs for the taking. And they were soon all rolling on the floor laughing.

REFLECTION:
In any organization, nobody is perfect and everyone has his/her faults and shortcomings. For an organization to survive and to prosper, everyone must learn how to prop up one another, to support and strengthen each other's weaknesses, and to upbuild and build upon each other's strengths. Since nobody is perfect, trying to eliminate what one perceives to be a weak link will simply result in somebody else becoming the next weak link. After a while, nobody will be left. It is a destructive process, not a constructive and upbuilding one.

In the first place, who are we to decide who are strong and who are weak? Sometimes, it is simply pride which leads us to think that our efforts are always the best and that our opinions are always right. Nobody has a monopoly of good intentions, much so, a monopoly of bright ideas. Let us take a moment to do an introspection of our relationship with our neighbors.

PRAYER:
Almighty God, teach us to be more positive in our ways and actions. Help us to be upbuilding to one another. Give us the grace to be mindful of our own shortcomings so that we can work on them and be the best we can be for others. Teach us your ways, O God, that we will learn to understand that we are in this world not to see through each other but to see each other through.
Amen.

May God bless us all.

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