Zax

October 10, 2020

While I usually do not post something written be someone else (at least I paraphrase!), I thought today’s Blog deserved a repost.  I grew up just as Dr. Seuss began writing and I was not read his numerous insightful stories.  I did however read them to my son Alexander.  Today my mother called to tell me her daily devotional referenced the story of the Zax.  This was part of a book called The Sneetches and Other Stories, copyrighted in 1961.  As I reread the story, I realized it was just as pertinent today as it was 60 years ago.

“One day, making tracks In the prairie of Prax, Came a North-Going Zax And a South-Going Zax.

And it happened that both of them came to a place Where they bumped.  There they stood.

Foot to foot.  Face to face.

“Look here, now!” the North-Going Zax said, “I say!  You are blocking my path.  You are right in my way.  I’m a North-Going Zax and I always go north.  Get out of my way, now, and let me go forth!”

“Who’s in whose way?” snapped the South-Going Zax.  “I always go south, making south-going tracks.  So you’re in MY way!  And I ask you to move And let me go south in my south-going groove.”

Then the North-Going Zax puffed his chest up with pride.  “I never,” he said, “take a step to one side.  And I’ll prove to you that I won’t change my ways If I have to keep standing here fifty-nine days!”

“And I’ll prove to YOU,” yelled the South-Going Zax, “That I can stand here in the prairie of Prax

For fifty-nine years!  For I live by a rule That I learned as a boy back in South-Going School.

Never budge!  That’s my rule.  Never budge in the least!  Not an inch to the west!  Not an inch to the east!  I’ll stay here, not budging!  I can and I will If it makes you and me and the whole world stand still!”

Well…Of course the world didn’t stand still.  The world grew.  In a couple of years, the new highway came through And they built it right over those two stubborn Zax And left them there, standing un-budge in their tracks.”

𝗧𝗛𝗢𝗨𝗚𝗛𝗧𝗦:  Far too often we find it more important to be right than to find common ground.  Do not be a Zax.  In the words of Forest Gump, “That’s all I have to say about that.”  Do the work.   Change is coming and it starts with you.