The Predictions We Refuse to Hear

One of my favourite folk tales is about Abunuwasi.

Like many good stories, it is both amusing and slightly uncomfortable.

One day, Abunuwasi climbed a tree and began cutting the very branch he was sitting on.

As he happily swung his axe, a traveller happened to pass by.

The traveller looked up and said, "My friend, you might want to stop. If you keep cutting that branch, you'll come down with it."

Abunuwasi barely looked up.

What did this stranger know?

He continued chopping.

A few moments later, exactly as the traveller had predicted, the branch snapped.

Down came the branch.

Down came Abunuwasi.

Thankfully, folk tales are kinder than gravity usually is, and he survived.

He immediately jumped to his feet and ran after the traveller.

Breathless, he caught up with him.

"You are clearly a great prophet!" he declared.

"You knew I would fall. Tell me now... on what day will I die?"

The traveller must have wondered whether the fall had affected more than just Abunuwasi's dignity.

The point, of course, was never that he possessed supernatural powers.

He simply understood consequences.

Some things don't require prophecy.

They only require paying attention.

That story has stayed with me for years because every now and then I meet an Abunuwasi.

Not someone sitting on a tree branch.

Someone sitting on a decision.

Recently, I found myself thinking about a close friend.

Let's call her Patty.

Patty has what many people would consider a dream job. She works in government, has built a respectable career, earns a good income, and has opportunities that many people would gladly exchange places for.

From the outside, everything appears to be in order.

But every time we talk, I find myself thinking about Abunuwasi's branch.

Patty drinks.

Not the occasional glass shared with friends.

The kind of drinking that quietly begins arranging your life around itself.

At first, it steals an evening.

Then a morning.

Eventually, it starts borrowing from your responsibilities.

I have watched it slowly creep into places where it has no business being.

Work has begun to suffer.

There have been moments of carelessness.

Deadlines missed.

Responsibilities postponed.

The kind of small decisions that rarely make headlines but slowly accumulate into larger consequences.

Her relationships have also changed.

Family members have grown concerned.

Friends have become weary.

Even her children have begun carrying burdens that children should never have to carry.

None of this happened overnight.

It never does.

Life has a way of whispering long before it starts shouting.

That is what makes Abunuwasi's story so timeless.

The traveller wasn't predicting the future.

He was simply observing the present.

Sometimes we confuse obvious consequences with prophecy.

We say someone is being negative.

Or judgmental.

Or unsupportive.

When in reality, they are simply connecting today's actions with tomorrow's likely outcome.

Construction taught me this long ago.

If a foundation begins to crack, you don't need to predict what will happen to the wall.

Farming teaches the same lesson.

Neglect a crop long enough, and harvest season becomes remarkably predictable.

Relationships are no different.

Businesses are no different.

Neither are our personal habits.

Every decision plants something.

The only mystery is how long it will take to grow.

One of the hardest things about caring for people is recognizing that you cannot live their lives for them.

You can point at the branch.

You can explain gravity.

You can even stand beneath the tree with your arms open.

But you cannot make someone stop swinging the axe.

That choice belongs to them.

I still have hope for Patty.

Perhaps because I have seen people rebuild careers.

Restore families.

Repair friendships.

Recover from addictions that once seemed impossible to overcome.

Human beings have an extraordinary capacity for beginning again.

But every beginning starts with one honest moment.

The moment when we stop chasing the traveller and start looking at the branch.

Perhaps all of us have a branch or two in our own lives.

Maybe it isn't alcohol.

Perhaps it is pride.

Anger.

Neglect.

Debt.

Work.

A habit we keep defending because, so far, the branch is still holding.

The danger is that gravity is patient.

It never argues.

It simply waits.

The old traveller wasn't a prophet after all.

He was just paying attention.

And perhaps wisdom is not the ability to predict the future.

Perhaps it is having the courage to recognize where today's choices are quietly taking us... before the branch gives way.