In a quiet forest lived a young tortoise.
He was slow,
small,
and often nervous.
Whenever danger appeared,
the deer ran fast,
the birds flew high,
and the monkeys jumped away.
The tortoise could do none of that.
One day, a wild dog entered the forest.
Animals panicked.
“Run!” shouted the deer.
“Climb!” screamed the monkeys.
The tortoise tried to move faster.
But his legs trembled.
He knew he could not escape.
Just then, an old tortoise spoke calmly,
“Do not race when you cannot win,”
he said.
“Hide when running will fail.”
The young tortoise hesitated.
Hide?
The wild dog was getting closer.
With no other choice,
the tortoise pulled his head and legs inside his shell.
The dog sniffed,
pushed,
and circled.
But the shell was strong.
After a while,
the dog lost interest and left.
The forest slowly became quiet again.
The animals returned.
The deer laughed nervously.
“You didn’t even move,”
they said to the tortoise.
The tortoise smiled gently.
“I moved in a different way,”
he replied.
Days passed.
The young tortoise remembered the lesson.
Later, another danger came—
hunters this time.
Animals rushed blindly.
Some made noise.
Some chose the wrong paths.
The tortoise watched carefully.
Instead of panicking,
he hid near rocks and mud,
staying completely still.
The hunters passed without noticing him.
That day,
the young tortoise understood something important.
Courage was not always about speed.
Wisdom was about timing.
From then on,
he did not feel weak for being slow.
He felt confident for being aware.
And in the forest,
he became known as
the tortoise who survived
because he knew when to hide.
🌟 MORAL OF THE STORY
Wisdom is not always about moving forward.
Sometimes, it is knowing when to stay still.
Right timing can be stronger than speed.
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