The Lesson of the Roast Leg of Lamb.......

Once upon a time, a newly married couple decided to have a roast leg of lamb for Sunday lunch. The wife asked the husband to buy a leg of lamb on his way home from work so it would be ready to cook on the weekend.

The husband did as requested and arrived home from work with a beautiful leg of lamb.

His wife looked at the leg, and she asked why her husband had not asked the butcher to trim off the end of the bone?

The husband asked why the end of the bone would have to be trimmed off?

"Because that is what my mother always did", she responded.

"Why?" asked the husband.

"I don't know", replied the wife, "but my mother had the end of the bone trimmed off as far back as I can remember".

"Well", said the husband, "why don't we ask your mother why we need to trim off the end of the bone?"

So the couple went to visit the mother.

The wife asked her mother, "mum, why do you trim the end of the bone off a leg of lamb?"

The mother responded "that's what I have always done, ever since leaving home".

"But why, did you trim it?" asked the daughter once again.

The mother responded "because that's why my mother, your grandmother, always did".

So, they all decided to visit grandmother.

When they arrived, the wife explained to the grandmother, that her husband bought a leg of lamb, but didn't know that he needed to have the end of the bone to be trimmed off.

She said, "Grandma, he asked why he needed to trim the end of the bone off, and I told him that is the way my mother used to always do it. He wanted to know why, so we asked mum, and she said that she always did it that way. When we asked her why, she said she had always done it because you always did it. So, we are here to find out why you have always had the end of the leg of lamb bone cut off. Can you please explain why you have always done this?"

The grandmother looked at her daughter and grandaughter and laughed. She said, "well, the reason I always had the end of the bone cut off was because it would not fit in my small oven"!

I love this story!!! I have told it many times.

You see, it is a story that covers so many critical points for a successful life.

There are so many messages in this story....

1. Ask "why?". The fact that something is done a particular way, by a particular person, does NOT mean that the same "why" applies to your situation.

2. Question what is viewed as "normal". This is how we improve. This is how we understand. This is how we become better. This is why we don't still believe the world is flat!

3. Always remember that one person's "why", may not be your "why".

4. Always remember that the way one person does something, will likely be different to the way someone else does it. We all achieve success in different ways, and by walking different paths.

5. Understand that people blindly follow other people, whether they are right or wrong. It's a case of the blind leading the blind! You are far better to make your own decisions, based on your own data and end up walking in the right direction on your own, rather than walking in the wrong direction with the masses!

I have used this story in my own life. If you have not yet read the lesson "No fancy title or pictures this time.... ", then may I suggest you do. This lesson is about my story and my observations of my parents, and relatives. It is a lesson of understanding WHY my parents remained poor, and WHY my father was beaten by HIS perspective on life.

Understanding WHY my father failed, allowed me to then realise that his "WHY", did NOT apply to ME! I understood that everyone's WHY is different.

Once you read that lesson, you will then be able to contemplate and apply this current lesson to my father's situation.

This exercise is not about being right or wrong. It is about understanding why things happen, and how one can view a situation from different perspectives and different points of view. It is about understanding that peoples' responses and reactions will differ depending on past experiences and their perspectives of those experiences.... and we all have different experiences.

Always ask "why", and then ask yourself if the reason for that "why" is valid, and whether it actually applies to your situation, or is an alternate and better path available to you?