It was late afternoon when I found myself on a narrow dirt path, halfway between two villages, sun thick in the sky, and dust clinging to everything. I had borrowed a donkey from a neighbour to help carry supplies, simple things, mostly: rice, oil, a few old books. She was an old creature, grey with patches of white, slow but steady. Until she wasn’t.
Without warning, halfway up a mild slope, she stopped. Just… stopped. Not in exhaustion, not in panic. Just refusal. I clicked my tongue. Pulled the rope. Bribed her with fruit. Nothing. Her eyes were half-lidded, not angry, just… resolved. And in her stillness, I found myself stranded, not just physically, but mentally too.
The More I Pushed, the Less She Moved
Frustration came quickly. I circled her, waved my arms, and muttered under my breath. I imagined the villagers watching from afar, smirking at my helplessness. The harder I tried to make her move, the deeper her hooves seemed to settle into the earth.
There was no logic. No injury. Just a quiet, absolute no. And maybe, somewhere deep inside, I understood that no wasn’t about defiance, but about something else entirely.
Eventually, I sat down in the dust beside her, arms on my knees, sweat rolling down my neck. I stopped fighting. The path, the schedule, the expectation, they all faded. It was just me, the donkey, and the wind through the acacia trees.
The Wisdom in Stillness
She stood there for nearly forty minutes. Neither grazing nor shifting. Just being. And in that space, stripped of movement and mission, I realised how rare it is to stop without guilt. To rest without planning the next step. The donkey had no timeline, no pressure to perform. She didn’t apologise for her pause.
I watched her in silence, finally matching her pace. Breathing slower. Thinking less. And then, with no cue, no drama, she lifted her head, took a few casual steps forward, and continued walking as if nothing had happened.
Carrying the Lesson Home
We made it to the village just before dusk. No one asked why we were late. No one cared. But I cared, because something subtle had changed.
Since that day, I’ve carried with me the lesson of that stubborn, silent pause. Sometimes, the refusal to move isn’t a failure. It’s a form of wisdom. A message to slow down, to notice the dust, the sky, the breath in your chest.
In a world that worships forward motion, it takes courage to be still. And sometimes, the creature we think is holding us back is the one quietly teaching us how to move through life with more presence.
