Uniqueness - Leo Buscaglia

There is a story by Leo Buscaglia that beautifully illustrates our uniqueness.


The animals got together in the forest one day and decided to start a school. There was a rabbit, a bird, a squirrel, a fish and an eel, and they formed a Board of Education. The rabbit insisted that running be in the curriculum. The bird insisted that flying be in the curriculum. The fish insisted that swimming be in the curriculum, and the squirrel insisted that swimming be in the curriculum. They put all of these things together and wrote a Curriculum Guide. Then they insisted that all of the animals to take all of the subjects.

Although the rabbit was getting an A in running, perpendicular tree climbing was a real problem for him; he kept falling over backwards. Pretty soon he got to be sort of brain damaged, and he couldn’t run anymore. He found that instead of making an A in running, he was making C and, of course, he always made an F in perpendicular climbing. The bird was really beautiful at flying, but when it came to burrowing in the ground, he couldn’t do so well. He kept breaking his beak and wings. Pretty soon he was making a C in flying as well as an F in burrowing, and he had a hellava time with perpendicular tree climbing.

The moral of the story is that the person who was valedictorian of the class was a mentally retarded eel who did everything in a halfway fashion. But the educators were all happy because everybody was taking all the subjects, and it was called a broad-based education.


So please embrace your oneness, your uniqueness and do not conform to something just because others want you to be (the mentally retarded eel). Be you.

The story links to our current education system also. Please don’t assume that if you don’t do well in one subject or two subjects you are a failure for life. You are the genius in your own field.