It's a story that my Buddhism teacher taught me 3 years ago.
It all started in a small village. People were living with animals in harmony and a peaceful environment.
One day a Deer approached the village and wanted to live in it. The farmers and villagers excitedly welcomed the Deer.
But after few days the Deer got bored in the village and wanted to find his role, position, place between all the animals who were already living in the village.
-He tried to be like a worker Cow but it was too hard for him
-He tried to be like a guardian Dog but it was too dangerous for him
-He tried lots of things....
Then he came across a Monkey who were making a fool at himself, only jumping from roof to roof, and basically making the farmers and villagers laugh.
The Deer then talked to himself and he said "I can definitely be better than the Monkey and make everybody laugh, it's too easy, I will be much much better than the Monkey and he will lose his place".
So the Deer tried to get to the roof but he couldn't. Then he tried to climb a tree, but he fell off and he hurt himself pretty bad.
Hmmm...Ok but what was it all about?
The morality is that we all have something we are completely good at, but if we try to do other's job that is beyond our skill we might hurt ourselves.
It's better to look hard for what we are good at instead of trying to steal someone else job.
I'm not saying that we can't try something else, some jobs, some tasks, in our life, because without trying we never know. The thing is don't try to do something that someone else is already doing much much better than you. The trial thing will depend a lot about your initial intention, if your intention was to steal, to ashamed someone, then you are a Deer, if you are trying something because you are interested in it, because it makes sense to you then you are a Monkey.
Your intention will determine if you'll hurt someone or not.
