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.

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.