Welcome to the happiness podcast. I'm Dr. Robert Puff. There's an old animal fable that seems to have originated in Russia.

It's called the Scorpion and the Frog and it goes like this.

There once was a scorpion and a frog both looking to cross

the river, but the scorpion knew it couldn't cross the river or it would drown. So it asks the frog, could I get on your back? the because if I do that you'll sting me and I'll drown.

But then the scorpion said, yes, but if I sting you, I'll drown too.

So the frog said, okay, so he lets the scorpion on his back and it's a long river in the frog swimming very hard across the river.

And halfway across, sure enough, the scorpion stings him.

And the frog says, why did you do that? Now we're both going to drown.

And the scorpion says, I'm a scorpion. That's what I do.

So they both drowned.

And I think there's a lot of wisdom that we can learn from this tale,

because in life, on our quest to seek happiness and peace,

it entails other people. We invite people into our lives and

with the hope and expectation that they will increase our level of

happiness and our lives will be better because they're in our lives. But one thing

often happens when we do this. We look at their behavior and though we so much

want them in our lives we think well but if this one thing were different I'd even be happier

so we let them in thinking that well if they're with me I bet it will change

I bet it will be different. And sadly, that often

isn't the case. Let me use an example. Let's say we meet someone, we fall in love, and we just love being with them because they bring so much joy

and happiness to our hearts.

But we also know that on the weekends they enjoy drinking and sometimes when they drink if something goes wrong

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