Sometimes what keeps us safe also keeps us from seeing what else is possible.
An old story tells of a poor farmer who owned a buffalo.
It was not an exceptional animal. It produced no great abundance of milk. But every morning the farmer milked it, carried the milk to a nearby village, sold it, and returned with enough money to buy the day’s necessities.
His family was not starving.
Nor were they prospering.
They lived somewhere in between.
There was enough food for today because tomorrow there would be more milk. There was enough certainty to continue.
And because life continued, they rarely had a compelling reason to ask whether they could live differently.
The curious thing was that the farmer had resources.
Several acres of land stretched around his modest house. Some of it was fertile. Some needed work. With seed, labour, patience and risk, at least part of it could have been cultivated.
The farmer knew the land existed. He crossed it every day. He watched it turn green during the rains and dry beneath the summer sun.
Yet the land occupied very little space in his imagination.
The buffalo occupied almost all of it.
Technically, he possessed land. Psychologically, he possessed a buffalo.
The Buffalo Worked
That is important.
The buffalo was not useless. It didn’t ruin the farmer’s life.
It worked.
Every morning it gave milk. The milk brought money. The money bought food.
Milk the buffalo.
Sell the milk.
Buy food.
Come home.
Sleep.
Wake.
Milk the buffalo again.
There was no great disaster.
There was no great possibility either.
And perhaps that was precisely the problem.
If the buffalo had stopped producing milk, the farmer might have been forced to look elsewhere much earlier.
Instead, it gave him enough.
Enough to survive.
Enough to continue.
Enough not to ask a more difficult question:
What else could I do with what I already have?
Then the Buffalo Disappeared
One evening, a travelling sadhu and his young disciple arrived at the farmer’s house.
The farmer had little, but he shared his meal and gave the strangers somewhere to sleep.
During the evening, the sadhu noticed two things.
The buffalo tied outside.
And the uncultivated land stretching beyond it.
Late that night, after the household fell asleep, the sadhu woke his disciple, untied the buffalo, and led it toward a steep drop beyond the village.
Then he did something horrifying.
He pushed the buffalo over the edge.
The animal died.
The disciple was appalled. This animal was the family’s livelihood. The farmer had shown them kindness, and his teacher responded by destroying the one thing the family depended on.
The sadhu offered no explanation.
The next morning, the farmer found his buffalo dead.
He did not see opportunity.
He did not see transformation.
He saw catastrophe.
Yesterday there was milk.
Today there was none.
And suddenly life asked him a question the buffalo had made unnecessary for years:
What do I do now?
He could borrow money. He could try to obtain another buffalo. He could leave the village and look for work.
Or he could turn towards something that had been there all along.
The land.
The fields had not suddenly appeared.
Only their significance had changed.
The Field Was Always There
The farmer obtained some seed and cultivated a small portion of his land.
The first crop did not make him rich.
But it produced something.
So he planted again.
He made mistakes. He learned about the soil, water, seasons and markets. He cultivated another portion of land.
Then another.
One choice opened the possibility of another.
Years later, when the sadhu and his disciple returned, they found cultivated fields where neglected land had once stood. The farmer was now earning his living from the land that had surrounded him throughout his years of poverty.
The opportunity had not suddenly arrived.
He had been forced to see an opportunity that familiarity had made almost invisible.
The act at the centre of this parable is disturbing, and it should remain disturbing. It is a parable, not a prescription. The lesson is certainly not that we should create suffering for people so that they can improve their lives.
The interesting question is:
Why did the farmer have to lose the buffalo before he could see the field?
Before Choice Comes Seeing
We usually talk about choice as though all our possibilities stand before us.
Look at the options.
Compare them.
Choose one.
But perhaps something comes before choice.
We first have to see something as a possibility.
The farmer knew that the field existed.
But knowing something exists and seeing what it could become are not the same.
The buffalo was producing milk every morning. Its value was obvious.
The field produced nothing.
How could the farmer calculate the value of a harvest he had never grown?
There was no crop to count.
No income to measure.
No success to remember.
This gives the familiar a powerful advantage over the unexplored.
What we already have can prove its value. What we have never tried cannot.
The salary from the job we have appears in the bank account.
The possibility we never explored produces no income.
The life we already live surrounds us with evidence.
The life we never tried leaves no evidence.
That is why:
Something can be available in life without being available in the mind.
What Is Your Buffalo Hiding?
This doesn’t mean everything familiar is bad.
The buffalo fed the farmer’s family.
Security has value.
Familiarity has value.
A job that pays the bills is valuable. A relationship that gives companionship is valuable. A way of living that has served us for years may deserve to continue.
The problem begins when something that works becomes so dominant that we stop seeing anything beyond it seriously.
Then the question is not:
What should I destroy?
It is:
What fields have I stopped seeing because my buffalo is still giving milk?
Perhaps something in your life works just well enough that you no longer examine it.
A job.
A routine.
A relationship pattern.
A belief about what you can do.
An old definition of success.
A story about what someone of your age or background is supposed to become.
Don’t immediately reject it.
First ask:
What does my buffalo genuinely give me?
Then ask:
What does my dependence upon it prevent me from seeing?
And finally:
What fields are already around me?
Not fantasies.
Not promises that another life must necessarily be better.
Actual possibilities already present but receiving little attention because something familiar occupies most of the landscape.
Perhaps after looking, you will keep the buffalo.
That too can be a choice.
There is a profound difference between:
“I remain here because I cannot see anything else.”
and:
“I can see what else is possible, and I still choose this.”
The outside life may look exactly the same.
But one is continuation.
The other is choice.
See the Field While the Buffalo Is Still Alive
The farmer needed catastrophe before he looked differently.
Perhaps we don’t.
Perhaps letting go does not always mean throwing something away.
It may simply mean loosening its grip on our imagination enough to look beyond it.
We may keep the buffalo without allowing it to occupy the entire landscape.
Pause.
Look at what is working.
Then look beyond it.
The field may already be there.
The farmer discovered his fields only after his buffalo was gone.
Perhaps we can do something more remarkable: let go without first losing everything, see the fields while the buffalo is still alive, and choose our lives again.
Read another article: Social Conditioning Explained
Read the Book: Who Chose Your Mind?
Listen to the Podcast: Why you feel Stuck in Life?
