Lemonada

I'm Gretchen Rubin, and this is a little happier.

As I've often noted, I love paradoxes, coens, and aphorisms, as well as all kinds of teaching stories or statements.

For a long time, I've thought it might be fun to write a series of fables.

A fable is a specific kind of teaching story, typically it's a short story conveying a moral

that features animals as characters. You probably know the fable of the tortoise and the hair,

and the grasshopper and the ant. Because I have an interest in fables, when I was wandering

through the library one day, I couldn't resist pulling out American writer William March's book

99 fables. And I was particularly struck by fable number four, the persimintry, about a loophole

invoking possum. In the fable, a possum looks longingly at the

delicious persimmons hanging from the fox's tree, and he thinks about how badly he wants one.

No, he says, the fox is my friend and benefactor, and he trusts me. Oh, no.

Several days later, he stares again at the persimmon tree,

where the fruits had reached their finest flavor. His mouth waters, but he turns away and goes home.

There he sees his wife, who says, what a morning this would be for eating persimmons. When I think

how sweet they are, I could break down and cry my eyes out.

The possum says, that settles it. I'll take those persimmons if it's the last thing I ever do.

Why, what sort of creature would I be if I deprive my sweet, faithful wife of persimmons,

endangering her health and making her cry her dear eyes out?

The fable concludes, we often do for the sake of others,

what we would like to do for ourselves. In my book better than before, I write about the 21

strategies we can use to make or break our habits. Sometimes people protest that 21 is too many

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