There once was a wealthy old man with a servant who had absolutely no filter. The servant spoke like a broken radio—blurting out whatever popped into his head, no intro, no conclusion, just pure chaos.
Fed up with the verbal tornado, the old man summoned him and said, “You talk like a drum solo—no melody, no structure. People laugh at you… and worse, they laugh at me!”
“From now on,” he declared, “every word you say must have a beginning and an end. Got it?” The servant nodded solemnly, like a student who’d just been told to write essays instead of doodling in class.
Days passed. One morning, the old man dressed in his finest silk shirt and sat puffing his pipe, looking like a portrait of leisure.
The servant approached, hands folded, eyes wide, and began:
“Sir, the silkworm spins silk. That silk is sold to the Chinese, who weave it into cloth. The cloth is shipped back to us, and you bought some to make a shirt.”
“Today, you are wearing that shirt. You are smoking your pipe. A glowing ember from your pipe has just landed on your shirt…”
“…and your shirt, sir, is now on fire.”
The old man looked down. His elegant silk shirt had a hole the size of a dinner plate and was still smoldering.
Moral of the story? Structure is great… but timing is everything.
From: Vietnamese Folk Tales