A short fable about patience: the spider and the wind

Here is a short fable about patience: a young spider who rebuilds her web in the wind, and an old spider who waits for the calm. Its moral, and how to use it today, follow.

The Spider and the Wind

On the corner of a garden gate lived two spiders, one young and one old.

One autumn afternoon a wind came up the lane. It caught the young spider's web and tore it from the latch to the hinge.

"No matter," said the young spider, and at once she began to spin again. She ran her first thread across the gap. The wind snatched it away. She ran another. The wind tangled it with the first. By the time she had a frame in place, a gust tore the middle out.

She spun again, and again, and again. Each time a little more of her silk went into the wind, and each time she grew a little more tired.

Under a leaf nearby, the old spider sat quite still. Her own web had been torn too.

"Why are you not building?" called the young spider. "You will have nothing to catch tonight."

"I am building," said the old spider. "I am building the part that comes first."

The young spider thought this was what lazy old spiders said, and went back to work.

The old spider watched the leaves of the apple tree. She watched the grass bend and rise. She noticed that each gust was a little weaker than the one before. When the sun was low and the leaves hung quite still, she came out from under her leaf.

She spun one long thread across the gate, and it held. She spun a frame, and it held. She laid her spiral in the calm evening air, round and even, and by dark her web was finished and strong.

The young spider had little silk left by then. She made what she could: a few loose threads, crooked and thin. In the night a moth flew into the old spider's web and stayed there. Another flew through the young spider's threads and went on its way.

In the morning both webs were silver with dew, but only one was whole.

"I worked all afternoon," said the young spider, "and you worked for an hour."

"You worked against the wind," said the old spider. "I waited, and then worked with the calm. That waiting was work too."

The moral

Patience is not waiting instead of working; it is waiting so the work will hold.

Using it today

Patience looks like doing nothing. The old spider was not idle: she was watching, saving her silk and choosing her moment.

• Notice your wind. Anger, tiredness, a crisis at work, a mood moving fast. Effort spent in a gale is often spent twice.
• Save your silk. Energy, goodwill and attention run out. The young spider lost not just her afternoon but the material she needed for the evening.
• Watch for the calm. Decide in advance what will tell you it is time: a night's sleep, a reply from the other person, a quiet morning. Then act fully.
• Do the part that comes first. Waiting well includes preparing. Draft the email, sketch the plan, gather the tools, so that when the calm comes you are ready to build.

The next time you feel the urge to rebuild something in the middle of a storm, ask what the old spider asked: is this the hour to spin, or the hour to watch the leaves?