- [Instructor] Hello, readers.
Today I'd like to talk to you
about The Moral of the Story.
Which story?
Well, we'll get to that.
First, what is a moral?
It's a lesson, usually about
how you're supposed to treat other people.
I think that we can say
that if a story has a moral,
it's trying to teach you
how to be a good person.
"Aesop's Fables" are full of these.
There's the story of "The
Tortoise and the Hare",
which I'll tell you very
quickly, if you're unfamiliar.
The slow loving tortoise
and the speedy hare
have a foot race.
And the hare is so sure that
she'll beat the tortoise,
that she stops to take
a nap during the race.
Meanwhile, the tortoise
slowly and steadily
continues onwards, and
crosses the finish line,
while the hare is sleeping.
That's confetti, as the tortoise
crosses the finish line.
The moral of the story is,
slow and steady wins the race.
You can beat an overconfident person,
even if they're more talented than you,
if you try really hard and
take it slow but steady.
But it's not just old
stories from ancient Greece
that have morals.
The stories around us are full of lessons
about how to treat one another.
So, how do you figure out
what the moral of a story is?
Good question.
One way to do it is to ask
yourself what the problem
of the story is, or how
the problem was solved.
From the hare's
perspective, the problem in
"The Tortoise and the Hare"
is that she lost the race.
What could she have done
to avoid that happening?
Well, she probably shouldn't
have stopped to take a nap.
From the tortoise's perspective,
the problem is solved.
He won the race.
And how did he do that?
By maintaining a slow, steady
pace for the whole race.
And then you take that lesson
that the characters learned
and you say, "Okay, so
this is true for everyone".
It's not just that hares
should make sure not to nap
during foot races, it's that
people who are good at stuff
shouldn't get so confident
about their skills
that they don't try as hard.
The hare is really good
at running quickly,
so she thinks she doesn't
need to try so hard
against a tortoise.
Because that is what morals do,
they are lessons in stories
that we can apply to our lives.
What's true for the hare and
what's true for the tortoise
are true for you and me,
because those stories were
invented to teach people stories,
not just tortoises and hares.
You can learn anything.
David out.
