L'Ovella Negra

I want to tell you a very old and ancient short story, they said this story came from a very very far away land, deep inside the dessert, spread out by the wind, through the heat of the sun and cold of night, carried on the back of camels crossing the oasis and the dunes of sand.
Pilgrims, explorers and traders passed this story one to another from mouth to mouth. They used to share this story when the cold is creeping in the dark of the night outside their leather tents where they usually gather in front of the bonfire they create to keep their body warm in the dessert.
Some years ago, the story reaches my old old grand father who then passed it on to me when I was only a little boy. I still remember what he said to me before he started the story:
“My grand son, this story has chosen you to listen to its message, so please bear it carefully in your mind and your heart, for when the time has come you will become the bridge who pass this story to the next chosen ones”.
And so today, I will share this story with you. Hoping that you will be able to capture the essence of its message and when the time come please pass it on to those who are chosen, just like you.
This is the story of the ‘black sheep’….

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“In a distant land many years ago, there lived a black sheep. It was executed by firing squad.
A century later, the grieving flock erected an equestrian statue in honor of the slain sheep that looked very nice in the park.
In the years that followed, every time a black sheep appeared, it was executed so that ordinary sheep could practice sculpture.”———————————————————————————————————

It’s a story about a black sheep, a member of a group who is regarded as a disgrace to it, an outcast. Someone who doesn’t look the same, think the same and act the same as the rest of the flock. A head that is standing out of the crowd. A deviation of the norm. An unwanted surprise. An unexpected child born. One little dot that ruins the whole pattern. A chaos in the form of being. It breaks harmony, it breaks silence, its energy is moving, flowing, melting down the iceberg of status quo. This is the black sheep story and this story is its voice.
My friends, we all are sheeps, we live in a flocks. This flocks can be our family, school, community, works or office, organizations where we’re in and even the country we live in. We all are sheeps and we live at least in one of these flocks.
Many of these flocks, especially nowadays in the 21st century, preach us all, and told us all to make a difference and to create change. For example, organizations and mainstream management teachings always told us that in an era of hyper competition innovation matters, creativity made all the difference, and that we have to think out of the box! But when look in a closer detail in our offices, workplaces and organizations, what happen to those who are really innovative, creative, and think out the box? They will be kicked out of the box. We preach about creativity but we strangle creativity, we talk about change but we don’t really want to change. We don’t know what we’re preaching, we just love the jargons, because it sounds nice, cool, and every up to date person in the world talk about it. We like it but we don’t really want it. We don’t mean what we say.
The truth is: As a flocks we want everybody to be like the rest of the flocks. It’s our tendency. In schools, family and life somebody will always force us to live up to their expectation. A father who wants his son to be a doctor or engineer while the son loves art. In schools we are forced to be brilliant, to be top of the class and to play by their rule. We grew up in a society that cloons us, engineered us to be part of the flocks, to be a white sheep, while ironically they keep telling us the story of the black sheep.
No.. no… no… as a being we obviously don’t like when someone is different from us, we don’t like when something challenges our status quo, we like to be in control, we hate changes, we don’t like surprises. And yet, we keep telling the story of the beauty of being different. We worship the statue of the blacksheep but we kill them everyday.
My dear friends, please keep this story in you heart, for maybe tomorrow or one day, when you come back to your country or your own organizations, you will see and be part of these flocks. And remember that you can always choose: to be just like the rest of the flocks or be one the black sheep: who drives real change with the risk of being slayed and silenced.