Crabs in the Bucket

It's indeed simple - I mean, the craft that I shared with the 14-year old. The picture shows some of our works.

It was so simple that I shared this story with them -

One time a man was walking along the beach and saw another man fishing in the surf with a bait bucket beside him. As he drew closer, he saw that the bait bucket had no lid and had live crabs inside.

"Why don't you cover your bait bucket so the crabs won't escape?", he said.

"You don't understand.", the man replied, "If there is one crab in the bucket it would surely crawl out very quickly. However, when there are many crabs in the bucket, if one tries to crawl up the side, the others grab hold of it and pull it back down so that it will share the same fate as the rest of them."

So it is with people. If one tries to do something different, get better grades, improve herself, escape her environment, or dream big dreams, other people will try to drag her back down to share their fate.

Moral of the story: Ignore the crabs. Charge ahead and do what is right for you. It may not be easy and you may not succeed as much as you like, but you will NEVER share the same fate as those never try.

We have been enriched by the talents of people who have had less than "perfect" bodies, whether by birth, accident or disease - Helen Keller, Stephen Hawking, George Bush, Stevie Wonder, Christopher Reeve, to name just a few. They chose to "climb the crab bucket" instead of listening to others.