Tuesday, September 27, 2005

The Tallest Tree

I was shifting through my email this morning when I come across with this old email from one of my friends. The story is about choices and how we make them. The story goes like this. One day, a wise man called out his apprentice. He showed him the forest and ordered him to go into the forest and seek out the tallest tree, uproot it and bring it back to him. The young man wandered into the forest looking for that tallest tree. He looked far and wide and searched carefully until it was sunset. He came out the forest empty handed and the wise man asked his young apprentice: “Where is the tallest tree?” To which the young man replied: “I didn’t found it, sir.” “How come?” was the quick inquiry of the wise man. “Sir, I can’t make up my mind as to which is the tallest of them all and the forest is just too big for me to search in just a day, I need more time to look for it.” was the young man’s sorry excuse. “Very well, if that is the case, you go look for it tomorrow then.” The old man decided. At day break, the young man immediately went to the forest to search the elusive tallest tree and before long, sometime after noon, he came back carrying a tree, the supposed “tallest” tree. The master asks, “How did you find the tallest tree.” The young man hesitated to answer into the query but he eventually replied, “I learned my lesson yesterday, I could go on and on forever looking for that “tallest” tree and may never even find it, because from my vantage point, every tall tree looks the same. So I decided to choose the “tallest” tree that I find yesterday and bring it back to you, Sir.” The master smiled. The moral of the story is simple. Practicality rules and never asks for the most perfect of all outcomes since it would only waste your time. However, I wish to venture and ask, what if on his retreat from the forest, the young man “discovered” and even taller tree, would he throw away the first and choose the “taller” tree? Or would he just stick to the one tree that he believed to be the tallest? What if he did in fact chose the latter, what would hinder him from choosing an even taller tree once he spotted one over the course of his return trip? Practicality dictates that one has to drop the last and choose the best. However, that is not only a very tedious process but also what if the decision is not just merely choosing the “tallest” tree, but rather one that involves another or several human beings? Would one forsake the current choice in favor of a better choice and hope that in this trial and error process, one would be able to settle down with the right one? Or would one rather stick it out and look for the “best” choice, hoping that the right one would “show up” eventually in one’s lifetime? How do we even “know” that the choice we made is the best of them all, if one hasn’t looked through all the possible choices? Is it possible or even practical to looked for all the choices and decide? How does one know that the current choice one had is already the best? Is it only after one forsaken it in favor of a lesser alternative? I remember the lyrics of a song and it goes like this, “Oh its sad to belong to someone else when the right one comes along.” Oh yeah, where is the right one? Definitely, it’s not in the forest. And is there really a right one? Or is the right one simply myth?

3 comments:

Jaz said...

I have an old friend who could tell you, without batting an eyelash, that he found the ‘right’ or the ‘best’ wife for him. He’s been happily married for over 40 years now, and he often tells us young ‘uns of the all-too-familiar line “deep down you’d know it if it’s the right one.” But tell that to another friend of mine, and you’d hear him say that all that ‘right’ stuff is nothing but bullsh*t.

Looking at it, isn’t ‘right’ and ‘best’ mere perceptions? What is considered ‘best or right’ for one may not necessarily be such for another. So I suppose I don’t have the ‘right’ answers to all your questions. But one thing’s for sure (for me, at least), we have to live by our choices.

Anonymous said...

True, the right one is different for everybody. What was right for one is not for the other. And true, we had to stick to our choices we made but what if in your "desperation" to seek the tallest tree, you pick the second or even the third tallest tree, would you stick to it when you've seen the tallest? It is for this reason that I choose to spend my lifetime to look for the tallest tree aka the right one rather than play along while still waiting. What bout you?

Jaz said...

i don't want to be a hypocrite by saying that i'll stick around no matter what, when i know that there's that minute possibility that i'd not.

no one can accurately predict what he/she would do when the 'actual' situation happens, so am leaving my choices open. i may stick around, or i may not. i guess it all depends on the circumstances present at that given time.