The Apprentice and the Serpent

Cobalt the Great’s gaze was fixed on the clock on the back wall of the classroom. The minutes were ticking by and still no sight of Johan, his apprentice.
“Late again…” he thought to himself.
Another twenty minutes passed until finally Johan came running in, gasping for air.
“I’m… I’m… so sorry, Cobalt! It won’t happen again!”
“Yes it will,” spoke Cobalt, “unless I do something about it. I can see the future, remember? I just decided that your next lesson will be to learn to embody the power of the Serpent. You will learn how to be fully grounded and live your life from moment to moment, functioning on your survival instincts, without analyzing or thinking or feelings involved.”
“That sounds amazing, how will I learn this?” asked Johan.
“You will start, as of today, to follow a schedule of tasks, and once you are able to happily follow the schedule and fulfill your tasks, you will have mastered the Serpent.”

Johan almost laughed, it sounded so absurd. What did a schedule have to do with the power of the Serpent? How something as ordinary as following a to-do list would teach him something magical eluded him completely, but he wanted to trust his teacher and so he dove into the practice.

Johan was in for a surprise, because no matter how hard he tried, he kept failing to master the Serpent. He always made his lists too long, so he could never finish them. He often felt amazing for completing tasks, but then he also felt bad for not completing one in time, which happened regularly. When he was working on one task, he would be thinking about other tasks. He failed miserably at prioritizing, and put duty over having fun time and time again. The things he enjoyed the most ended up last on an endless list, so he never got to them. He kept collecting more and more things to do and never got around to doing them all, until he felt like he was walking with a hundred things on his back.

When he had finally had enough, he decided to go talk to the wizard. After explaining all of his struggles, the wizard chuckled: “Do you remember what I said about the Serpent? The Serpent does not think, nor analyze, nor feel! You have been overthinking, over-analyzing, and feeling good or bad depending on your performance. I can see you carrying your Serpent on your back and instead of channeling its power, it is weighing you down. Why do you think I gave you this exercise?”

Johan understood everything Cobalt said. He had failed miserably. He finally relaxed and all the weight of his tasks started to slide of his shoulders, leaving him with a feeling of total freedom, liberated from the burden he had created himself. From now on, he would ride his Serpent, enjoy following schedules AND breaking them and take charge of his life!

Yet, he still struggled to give an exact answer to the question Cobalt asked him. What was the purpose of this exercise? To become more powerful? To not be late again to class? To be efficient?

It suddenly dawned on him.

“To choose what is important and to put it first.”

Johan felt the power of the Serpent surge through his body and he was in complete control of it, for the very first time. He felt absolutely… limitless.

Cobalt the great smiled and his eyes glistened with joy, full of pride for his apprentice.

“Just keep doing that, and you will live happily ever after.”

The End.