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

As I've mentioned many times, I love secrets of adulthood, aphorisms, epigrams, paradoxes,

comets, allegories, fables, and teaching stories of all kinds.

Perhaps because I love them so much myself and go out of my way to read them, I'm often

surprised to learn that a story or aphorism that I assume is very well known, or even

a cliche, is actually not very well known.

For instance, I love Eesop's fables.

Eesop was a storyteller in ancient Greece, who's credited with a number of fables now

collectively known as Eesop's fables.

Although his existence remains unclear and no actual writings by him survive, numerous

tales credited to him have been gathered over the centuries.

One of my favorites of these stories is the North Wind and the Sun.

Many versions exist, but here is the basic version if you don't know this story.

This Sun and the North Wind begin to argue about who was the stronger.

As they quarrel, they notice the traveler walking down a road.

Looks suggested the Sun.

There's a traveler wrapped in a cloak.

Let's decide who of us is stronger by seeing who can strip him of his cloak.

The North Wind agreed to the test and immediately sent an icy blast against the traveler to

try to whip the cloak from his body.

The traveler clutched his cloak and the harder the North Wind blew, the more tightly he

hung on.

...