An Old Man, a Boy and Their Donkey

An old man, a boy & a donkey were going to town. The donkey, their sole possession, was to be sold at market.

The boy rode on the donkey & the old man walked. As they went along they passed some people who remarked it was a shame the old man was walking and the boy was riding.

The man and boy thought maybe the critics were right so they changed positions. Then, later, they passed some people who remarked, ' What a shame, he makes that little boy walk.' So they then decided they'd both walk!

Soon they passed some more people who thought they were stupid to walk when they had a decent donkey to ride. So, they both rode the donkey.

Now they passed some people who shamed them by saying how awful to put such a load on a poor donkey. The boy and man figured they were probably right, so they decide to carry the donkey.

As they crossed the bridge, they lost their grip on the animal and he fell into the river and drowned. The moral of the story?

If you try to please everyone, you can lose everything.

The above was e-mailed to me as a bit of humor - what you lose was stated differently. I understood the somewhat course humor of it, but saw it as more than that. I thought it was a fable of moral relativism. I only altered the last sentence and I added a sentence in the beginnining.