Don’t Make Me Answer | Mullah Nasruddin Books by Ron J. Suresha

Don’t Ask, Don’t Make Me Tell

Once, young Nasruddin’s neighbor, Faik, came to him and asked if he would keep a large jar for him while he went away on pilgrimage for a month. Of course, he would want to have the jar back again upon he return. Nasruddin agreed, and stored the pot in the kitchen.

Several days passed, and the boy was curious to find out what was in the jar. Finally his curiosity got the best of him and, when he opened it, he was delighted to find it full of honey. I’ll just take one little taste, Nasruddin thought. Nobody will ever notice.

He stuck his finger in, tasted the delicious honey, replaced the lid onto the jar, and went about his normal activities.

But since Nasruddin had no strong willpower, every day the same scenario repeated itself — with the boy thinking, It’s just one finger-full . . . nobody will miss it. Naturally before long, he had tasted all the honey and the pot was empty.

When Faik returned, he came to Nasruddin and asked, “Where’s my jar of honey?” Nasruddin handed him the empty jar, and Faik cried out: “It feels so light!” He opened the jar and peered inside, then demanded, “Boy, where is my honey‽”

Nasruddin replied: “Oh, how I wish you had not asked this question. And even greater than that desire, how I wish I did not have to answer.”

Excerpted from The Uncommon Sense of the Immortal Mullah Nasruddin: Stories, Jests, and Donkey Tales of the Beloved Persian Folk Hero

Your Daily Nasruddin

When we think our thievery or deception is acceptable because we convince (or delude) ourselves that it is unnoticeable or inconsequential — the little “white lie” — our self-deception is bound to accumulate to the point where we cannot help but trip ourselves up and betray ourselves.

In this way, Nasruddin drains his neighbor’s pot of honey, one delicious fingerful at a time.

When confronted at the end of a long series of very small thefts of honey with the obvious absence of the entire contents of the pot, Nasruddin cannot bear to speak the truth: he is too invested in the little falsehoods that have snowballed into one big fat lie.