Learn the Hare’s lesson

The Hare and the Tortoise

A HARE one day ridiculed the short feet and slow pace of the Tortoise, who replied, laughing: “Though you be swift as the wind, I will beat you in a race.” The Hare, believing her assertion to be simply impossible, assented to the proposal; and they agreed that the Fox should choose the course and fix the goal. On the day appointed for the race the two started together. The Tortoise never for a moment stopped, but went on with a slow but steady pace straight to the end of the course. The Hare, lying down by the wayside, fell fast asleep. At last waking up, and moving as fast as he could, he saw the Tortoise had reached the goal, and was comfortably dozing after her fatigue.

— Slow but steady wins the race.

The Preceding is probably the most famous of Aesop’s Fables, that of the Hare and the Tortoise. The story invites the reader to empathize with the underdog, the Tortoise, and rejoice in his defeat of the arrogant, boastful Hare. The “moral” of the story is that if you’re disciplined and work hard, you can vanquish any foe, no matter how superior they seem to be. However, that does not seem to be the true lesson of the story to me. The notion that the inferior competitor will always win as long as he doesn’t stop is faulty in that it requires that the stronger competitor does stop. The Tortoise didn’t win the race so much as the Hare lost it by letting his arrogance affect his judgment. Therefore it seems to me that the true lesson of the story is the Hare’s: