One sunny day in the jungle, the mighty lion—the king—was basking in the sun with his cubs beside him. Suddenly, a mischievous monkey came out of nowhere and tugged the lion’s tail twice!
The lion wasn’t as shocked as he was annoyed.
The monkey, standing a little distance away, made silly faces at the lion and ran off laughing.
The lion’s cub looked up at his father and said,
“What a disrespect! And you didn’t say a word to him?”
The lion calmly replied,
“The time to speak hasn’t come yet. Wait and watch, you’ll understand everything.”
A few days later, the same monkey accidentally crossed paths with the lion again. This time, without any hesitation, the lion ended the monkey with a single strike.
The cub, surprised, asked his father,
“Father! That day he misbehaved so badly, yet you did nothing. But today, when he did nothing wrong, you killed him?”
The lion responded,
“This is politics, my son. After that day, the monkey went around kicking the bear, swinging from the elephant’s trunk, dancing on the rhino’s back, tickling the hyena, and even slapping the giraffe! To everyone, he was saying, ‘I don’t even respect the king! Who are you to me?’”
“If I had punished him back then, everyone would have said I was abusing my power, being cruel. But now, after everything he’s done, just wait—you’ll see everyone coming to thank me.”
“Sometimes, you have to let the enemy rise just high enough so that when they fall, it hurts the most—and they never rise again.”