Argie the white wolf who could not become a sheep
A story about diversity and acceptance
One day the flock was out in the mountains. All the sheep were happy to eat fresh grass from the sunny slopes. “Such a lovely day to be a sheep!” they said and danced along.
Suddenly, a white wolf came out of the nearby forest. Nobody knows where it lived before. Its name was “Argie”. Argie had no friends and was feeling lonely. It noticed the sheep having fun and went close. Argie wanted some company.
The sheep saw Argie in its white coat and thought it was one of them. Once they looked closely, they started laughing. “You are such a strange sheep!” they noted while pointing out Argie’s thin hair and sharp teeth. “How can you even chew on vegetables with those fangs?”, they said and kept laughing.
“No-one wants to play with me”, thought Argie. “They are right: I should become less strange” was its plan. And so the white wolf sat in a corner, carefully observing the behaviour of the sheep. “I will learn to do what they do and then I can make friends with them!”, concluded Argie.
The sheep minded their own business. Some would mock Argie, while others would simply ignore it. Argie had a clear idea of what to do. It started to copy the moves of the sheep. Its skills caught the attention of the flock. “Argie, you are such a good dancer!” observed some of the sheep. The others nodded in agreement and they all started playing together. Argie thus joined the flock and grew in popularity among the sheep.
The happy days would not last. Problems started to arise. Argie could still not become a sheep, no matter how hard it tried. Whenever they would eat, Argie would finish its meal much faster than the others. “Why are you so quick to gobble up the grass?” the sheep would wonder. “You do not eat like us” they would add.
Sometimes what is not spoken is more important than what we hear. Argie got the point behind those words and learnt to eat slowly. It would always chew on something to look more like the sheep. The charade worked for a little while. None in the flock made any comment about Argie’s apparent differences.
There was more trouble though. Argie moved so much faster than the others. It could twist and turn rapidly. Whenever the sheep would gather to play a game of chase, Argie would always be the winner. “You keep winning; you must be a cheater!” argued the sheep and decided not to play with Argie anymore.
The white wolf was sad. No matter what it did, it could not be like the others. “Fine, I will stop cheating”, shouted Argie, “please forgive me and I will play fairly from now on!”. The sheep believed in those words and let Argie join them for another game of chase. This was the first time Argie had ever lost. It kept losing just to not raise any suspicions.
When the sheep got bored of this game, they switched to play some hide-and-seek. Argie forgot about the fact that its sense of smell was far sharper than that of the sheep. When it was its turn to seek the sheep in hiding, Argie did it with ease: it could trace everybody with precision. The sheep were so frustrated to always be on the losing side and kept calling Argie a fraud.
Again, Argie admitted to foul conduct, even though it had not done anything wrong. Pretending to not be able to follow its scent, Argie lost in all the remaining rounds of hide-and-seek. The sheep were happy to not have any cheaters among their ranks. “Finally, we have fair competition because we do not always get the same winner” was their shared opinion.
Next up was tug-of-war. The white wolf got excited about this new game and forgot it was much stronger than the other members of the flock. The same thing happened: Argie won easily and the sheep protested angrily. “You are a lost cause and cannot redeem yourself; you will always be a cheater”, said the sheep in frustration.
Argie stood alone by the side and cried. “I will never be like them” it said. “Hiding all the time is not fun anymore”, it added, “I cannot keep up the appearances”. And so the white wolf left the flock. It went back to the forest whence it came.
The years went by. Argie never returned. It understood that it cannot integrate with the flock. Its destiny is to roam the wilds forever. This is what wolves do, whether they like it or not. Some believe Argie is still out there, all alone in the woods. Others hope it joined a pack of wolves and lived happily ever after with its kind. What do you think happened to the white wolf?
Go play now. Maybe one day you too will observe that your clumsy friends are just different than you. What you do effortlessly, they cannot do well. And what is natural to them is very hard for you. Accept who everybody is and everything shall be fine. Otherwise, you or them will always feel unfairly treated. Whatever you do, though, remember that none can escape their nature: not you, not the sheep, not Argie.