Why can’t we seem to change some people?
The lioness flared her black nostrils and growled with deep disapproval at her smallest cub who was struggling at the back of the pack. All her muscles in her lower jaw tensed as she shamefully turned and waited for this cub to catch up. All the other lionesses purred in deep disapproval as they proudly marched past her. Even the matriarch coldly glared at her and growled, “You better teach your cub how to be more like a lion!”
“Hurry up, little one!” the mother snarled and violently swiped at the dusty ground in utter frustration. But her smallest cub didn’t seem to even be listening. He was too busy prancing around chasing after a nearby hopping locust. As the mother powerfully pounced upon his unsuspecting body, she angrily picked him up by his neck. And immediately he was suspended in the air. His limbs dangled helplessly before him.
When they all finally reached their den, all the little cubs quickly snuggled in to suckle beside her. However, the lioness couldn’t stop from thinking about her smallest cub. No matter how much time and effort she invested into raising him, he wouldn’t hunt the way she hunted. He wouldn’t growl the way she growled. And he surely didn’t behave the way she taught him to behave. “What was she doing wrong?” she moaned in exasperation.
But little did she know, that the park rangers on this African reserve had many months ago cleverly planted this orphaned cub into her family. He was really a baby jaguar whose mother was recently poached.
Like this lioness, many of us get frustrated in life when our kids, students, interns, or employees don’t seem to listen to us or meet our expectations. And no matter how much training or discipline we exert on them, they always seem to miss the mark. One of the reasons why this may be happening, is because we have yet to realize that they might be distinctly different from us. And instead of trying to pigeon-hole them into becoming just like us, maybe we should spend more time helping them fully realize who they originally are called to be.
