The Ass in the Lions Skin

“I know you won’t believe me, but the highest form of Human Excellence is to question oneself" Socrates

     I have had a number of Interns and young Administrators who I have had the pleasure to mentor over the years.  I remember them all.  But there was one that may have been my best.  

     He was smart, Ivy League educated, came from a wealthy family, and, I might say, was also a handsome young man.  He had everything going for himself.  Only had one sticking point….he was full of himself!  He looked down his nose at other people.  Sometimes our own staff.  He seemed to pride himself that he was in a power position over other people, even as an Intern.

  Once we got to know each other better, I thought it might be a good time to teach him a lesson in humility.  So I took a legal pad and hand wrote a story that I remembered from my childhood and handed it to him.  It was a lesson from Aesop:

                                             “The Ass In the Lion Skin”

     There once was an ass who, while walking down a road, came across a lion skin and put it on.  Going into the woods and pastures, threw all the flocks and herds into a consternation.  At last, meeting his owner, he would have frightened him, too, but the good man, seeing his long ears sticking out, recognized him, and with a good cudgel, made him sensible that, notwithstanding his being dressed in a lion skin, underneath it all, he was still the same ass”.

     My Intern’s reaction didn’t go well to say the least.  And after his time with me was over, I didn’t see him again for some time.  Years later, we happened to run into each other at a conference and we spoke.  He turned out to be a caring Administrator and a thoughtful man.  I like to think that maybe old Aesop and I may have had something to do with that!