Several students of Socrates came to ask him to teach them the principles of being human. Socrates led them to a barley field and told them to choose the grain of barley they thought was the plumpest and best. He instructed them, “You may pick only one grain, walk through only once, and you may not choose twice.”
The students were absorbed in choosing. After they had walked through the entire barley field once, Socrates was waiting ahead. He asked: “Have you chosen your grain of barley?”
The students all lowered their heads; one student answered: ‘Teacher, at the beginning I found a large, plump grain, but after only a few steps, I thought I might find a bigger one, so I threw it away. I kept walking and discarding grains, only to realize in the end that one of the earliest had been the largest and plumpest.’
Another student spoke up: “I thought I would keep going ahead and see, surely I would find a grain that was both large and good. Only when I finally walked out of the field did I realize I had no grain in my hand.”
“Teacher, please let us choose 1 more time!” the other students asked together. Socrates firmly shook his head. “There is no second chance. We live only once.”
Source: collected
