“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”
― Mark Twain
As a child one of my favorite books was called “Gordon the Goat,” by Munro Leaf.
The story of Gordon, a Texas goat who follows the lead goat because that’s what all the other goats do, comes back to me frequently.
As the goats travel, the lead goat gets them all into a patch of weeds that make them feel ill, and then heads directly into a twister. Gordon, at the back of the line, wonders why they’re walking into a tornado, but just keeps walking. Gordon turns yellow, then green, and then gets sick. (For years I remembered this part in color, although the drawings are in black and white.) Upon being blown out of the twister, Gordon comes to a revelation: “Never again would he follow along just because everyone else did. He was going to find out first — where he was going, why he was going, and what he was going to do when he got there.
Gordon does his own thinking now. He gets along much better than before.”
It’s still a good lesson, no matter our age.
