Lesson From The Knee-High Man

I've been feeling rundown. Usually I would describe it as Bilbo Baggins, "like butter spread over too much bread", but that that doesn't feel entirely accurate. I feel that I have worthy goals and I am working to achieve them, but times it seems like the harder I work the further away I get from my desired outcome. I was pondering my situation and feelings and the story of the knee-high man - as told by Diane Goode in American Folk Tales and Songs - came to mind. I'm going to try to not have this entry turn into a Reading Rainbow book report. And I'll mention now that if you haven't read the story there will be some spoilers. The story’s protagonist, the knee-high man, wants to become what he calls "sizeable". Now I am ever so much taller than knee-high so I am not able to commiserate with him in this regard. However I feel I can identify with his desire for self-improvement and the discouragement that can accompany failed attempts. In the story, the knee-high man seeks council from animals that are larger than himself. The advice he receives from the well intentioned animals may have helped them to gain their sizable stature, but does not work for the knee-high man. He does what each animal advises him to do. Each course of action fails to produce the desired effect. And we read of some bodily ache that the attempt has caused and he gets littler and littler. Last of all he seeks council from an owl that asks him why he wants to be sizeable. The knee-high man tells the owl that he wants to be able to see far away and defend himself in a fight. The owl then points out that he could see far away at current stature if he climbed a tree and that he is unlikely, as no one has tried to fight him, for him to need to be able to fight. The owl then concludes by saying that the knee-high man needs not to be bigger in the body but in the brain. The lesson I take from this is that I need to work smarter rather than just working harder. I need to reevaluate my goals to see if some of them need to be a lower priority or are unimportant, then determine if the strategy I am pursuing is working or if I need to consider changing tactics.

But you don't have to take my word for it [buh dum bum].