A man spent his whole life going to a church every day and prayed to the statue of a great saint begging “please, please, please, let me win the lottery.” Finally the exasperated statue comes to life and looks down at the begging man and says “my son, please, please, please, buy a ticket.”

( an old joke as told in Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Eat, Pray, Love)

Meaning

Magic can happen in our lives – but we have to  be prepared to do some of the work!

One day, a scorpion looked around at the mountain where he lived and decided that he wanted a change. So he set out on a journey through the forests and hills. He climbed over rocks and under vines and kept going until he reached a river. 

The river was wide and swift, and the scorpion stopped to reconsider the situation. He couldn’t see any way across. So he ran upriver and then checked downriver, all the while thinking that he might have to turn back. 

Suddenly, he saw a frog sitting in the rushes by the bank of the stream on the other side of the river. He decided to ask the frog for help getting across the stream. 

“Hellooo Mr. Frog!” called the scorpion across the water, “Would you be so kind as to give me a ride on your back across the river?” 

“Well now, Mr. Scorpion! How do I know that if I try to help you, you wont try to kill me?” asked the frog hesitantly. 

“Because,” the scorpion replied, “If I try to kill you, then I would die too, for you see I cannot swim!” 

Now this seemed to make sense to the frog. But he asked. “What about when I get close to the bank? You could still try to kill me and get back to the shore!” 

“This is true,” agreed the scorpion, “But then I wouldn’t be able to get to the other side of the river!” 

“Alright then…how do I know you wont just wait till we get to the other side and THEN kill me?” said the frog. 

“Ahh…,” crooned the scorpion, “Because you see, once you’ve taken me to the other side of this river, I will be so grateful for your help, that it would hardly be fair to reward you with death, now would it?!” 

So the frog agreed to take the scorpion across the river. He swam over to the bank and settled himself near the mud to pick up his passenger. The scorpion crawled onto the frog’s back, his sharp claws prickling into the frog’s soft hide, and the frog slid into the river. The muddy water swirled around them, but the frog stayed near the surface so the scorpion would not drown. He kicked strongly through the first half of the stream, his flippers paddling wildly against the current. 

Halfway across the river, the frog suddenly felt a sharp sting in his back and, out of the corner of his eye, saw the scorpion remove his stinger from the frog’s back. A deadening numbness began to creep into his limbs. 

“You fool!” croaked the frog, “Now we shall both die! Why on earth did you do that?” 

The scorpion shrugged, and did a little jig on the drownings frog’s back. 

“I could not help myself. It is my nature.” 

Then they both sank into the muddy waters of the swiftly flowing river. 

Meaning

Sometimes we can’t stop ourselves from expressing our true base nature, even though doing so will hurt ourselves as well as the other person.

It is self-destructiveness at its stupidest – deliberately harming others even though this means harming ourselves as well. So why do we do it?

Maybe it’s hard to change our nature.

Maybe we’re just bad at “doing consequences”. Thinking things through is too hard! Instead, especially in the heat of the moment, we just do what feels natural.

What does human scorpion behaviour look like in real life?

We’re not allowed to kill people in real life —  but we can, and do, kill relationships.

An example of  human scorpion behaviour is someone who flies into a rage when criticised.  This person can’t deal with criticism; when criticised she  reverts to true base nature and says:

“How DARE my friend criticise me!  This is unforgivable.  That’s it. I must punish her. From now on, she is no longer my friend.”

So the human scorpion kills the friendship to punish her friend for criticising her. The only problem is that, by killing the friendship to punish her criticising friend, our human scorpion  has hurt herself by killing off  a valued friendship.

And since criticism is inevitable in any friendship, our human scorpion  is destined to go through life killing off all her  friendships.

Here’s another example of human scorpion behaviour.  A wife says, after being bashed by her  husband, “If you ever hit me again,I will leave you. That is a non-negotiable promise.  Do  you understand?”

Human scorpion husband says apologetically, “Yes, I understand. I promise I will never ever hit you again.”

Then a few weeks later, he feels stressed and irritable and his wife is really nagging him about something stupid and — Whammo!  He just couldn’t help it –something inside him just snapped. “If only she hadn’t  gone on and on”, he told himself later.

The wife honours her promise and leaves him;  he is devastated. He loved his wife and valued the marriage and  is now very sad to have lost both.

Same story with the philandering spouse who  promises never  to be unfaithful again. . . “But  the temptation was just too great. I couldn’t help myself!!!

—

A disturbing question:

What about you and me? Could we be human scorpions sometimes in our behaviour? 

It’s easy to spot human scorpion behaviour in others and it’s easy to  identify ourselves with poor Froggie, but can we spot the our own scorpion side?