There are moments when clarity doesn’t arrive through pain, argument, or explanation, it arrives quietly, almost gently. This morning it came to me as a simple thought: Water always settles at its own level.
It doesn’t force itself upward. It doesn’t resent gravity. It doesn’t argue with the container holding it.
It simply rests where structure allows. And suddenly, another story I’ve known for years made perfect sense alongside it.
The Parable of the Frog and the Scorpion
A scorpion comes to the edge of a river and sees a frog resting near the bank.
“Can you carry me across?” the scorpion asks.
The frog hesitates. “Why would I do that? You’ll sting me, and we’ll both drown.”
The scorpion replies, “Why would I sting you? If I do, I’ll die too. That wouldn’t make sense.”
The frog thinks about it. The logic seems sound. So he agrees.
Halfway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog. As they both begin to sink, the frog cries out,
“Why did you do that? Now we’ll both die!” The scorpion answers, almost sadly:
“I couldn’t help it. It’s my nature.”
This story isn’t about good or bad people, it’s about what happens when hope asks someone to move beyond what they’re built to carry.
Nature and Capacity Always Win
That story isn’t about evil either. It’s about truth. The scorpion didn’t sting out of malice. The frog didn’t carry out of stupidity. One acted according to its nature. The other acted according to hope.
And hope, when it ignores reality, is not wisdom, it’s risk. This is where the water comes back in.
You cannot pour two gallons into a one-gallon container without overflow.
You cannot lift something to a higher place if the system supporting it isn’t built for that elevation.
No amount of intention changes capacity. No amount of love changes nature. Water doesn’t rise just because it’s encouraged to. And scorpions don’t stop being scorpions because the consequences are inconvenient.
Why This Matters in Real Life
People don’t hurt you because you failed them. They hurt you because their nature exceeds their capacity for stability. You can love deeply. You can offer safety. You can create peace.
But you cannot:
- love someone into emotional depth they don’t have
- stabilize someone whose nervous system is addicted to chaos
- elevate someone who collapses when things become calm
That doesn’t make them bad people. It means their container is smaller than what you’re pouring.
The Quiet Lesson
The frog didn’t drown because he was foolish. He drowned because he believed logic could override nature. The water didn’t spill because it was careless. It spilled because it was overfilled. And the scorpion didn’t betray. It remained exactly what it was. There’s no villain in this story, only reality.
Where Peace Begins
Wisdom isn’t learning how to change scorpions. Wisdom is learning which rivers not to cross. It’s knowing when to stop over-pouring. When to stop over-lifting. When to stop fighting gravity.
Water finds its level. People settle where their structure allows them to remain. And nothing, not pain, not longing, not confusion, is permanent. Except truth. And once you see it clearly, you don’t need to explain it to anyone else.
Troy P Zehnder 