On a beautiful Spring day, the wind swirls through the air, and as the birds chirp, a strutting, smug fox looks toward the trees in the sky. What’s this, he thinks, as he gazes up. He sees a high vine hanging full of delicious plump grapes that are just begging to be devoured straight from their vine. Of course, the fox must seize the opportunity to revel in the scrumptious juices of the grapes. Excited by the prospect, he envisions plucking so many grapes that he’ll be able to make wine with the leftovers!

So he reaches.

And he reaches.

And once again desperately reaches for the grapes, but this time with a jump.

The grapes are too far from the fox’s grasp. He shrugs. If the grapes were so unobtainable, he concludes it was a sign. The fox stomps off, making a beautiful Spring day a coldened and gloomy one. He thought, “Who needs grapes anyway? Especially if they are sour! Geez!”

In this story you may wonder what would have happened if the fox kept trying just a little longer, but with more creativity. If he would have tried something different like attempting to climb the tree, or use a stump to elevate his body and his efforts. Instead, the fox’s final analysis was to give up, retreat from the mission, and walk away without using any deeper analysis of the situation. And most of all, he concluded the grapes were probably sour anyways – a bias many of us have used when things don’t go our way. 

What would you do if you were the fox? How would you approach the situation? Would you walk away, or would you cavalier the mission and conquer how to get the juicy grapes as a reward for your hard work?