Are You a Croaker or A Leaper?

Are You a Croaker or A Leaper?

By Pamela Perry Blaine

© August 2005

In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out.

It is then burst into flame by an encounter

with another human being. We should all be thankful

for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.
- Albert Schweitzer

We don't often think about the effect that our words have upon others. Our words do have power and everything that we say has a positive or negative impact on others around us.

There is an old story that is told about an army* of frogs that went leaping through the forest one day when two of the frogs suddenly fell into a deep pit. All of the other frogs gathered around thehole to look down on their two fallen comrades. Theyall began to sadly shake their heads and to croak out dismal warnings. "It's too deep!" croaked one frog. Another croaked that there was no way that they would ever be able to get out of that pitalive.

The two fallen frogs began to continuously jump as they tried to get out of the pit, but the frogs that were watching kept croaking louder at them that they might as well stop because they were as good as dead and just wasting their time. One of the two frogs finally gave up and heeded the pessimistic advice of the frogs at the top. He quit jumping andliterally "croaked" and died.

The other frog just kept right on jumping and leaping harder than ever in spite of all the loud croaks of disapproval from the frogs that were watching around the top of the hole. They kept croaking shouts at himto quit jumping and save himself from all the pain and suffering he was incurring as he leaped and fell back down to the bottom of the pit over and over again.

Finally, he leaped even harder than ever and to the surprise of all the other frogs he jumped right out of the deep pit. The other frogs asked him, "Why did you keep leaping even though we yelled and croaked at you to stop?" It was then that the frog explained to them that he was deaf and he had thought they were cheering for him and yelling words of encouragement to him the entire time!

A little encouragement can go a long way and as Babe Ruth once said, "It's hard to beat a person who never gives up."

Our words do have the power to hurt or to heal. What kind of frog are you? Are you a croaker or a leaper?

*Note of interest: A group of frogs is called "an army".