Erik Berne
The moment a little boy is concerned with which is a jay and which is a sparrow, he can no longer see the birds or hear them sing.
Erik Berne
There was a Chinese who was going to take the subway. His companion told him that they would save twenty minutes by taking the express train, so they decided to take the express train. When they arrived at Central Park, the Chinese calmly sat down on a bench. The other person looked at him, surprised.
“Well,” explained the Chinese, “since we saved twenty minutes, we can sit here for a while and enjoy the park.”
I found this little story at the end of a book by Eric Berne called “Games People Play.” It’s a funny book that explains how we are not typically free, but rather trapped in a mental and psychological mechanism that leads us to play games and assume roles within a script that was given to us many years ago, and to which we have unconsciously adhered after years and years of it, of course.
However, I must say that in the story above, those 20 minutes at the park, I have always had the ability to enjoy them. But it’s also possible that I deceive myself.
