What do you do when your neighbor's donkey becomes a daily nuisance and you do not want to lose your neighbor because of it?
Perhaps the answer of a mountain man from the past was wiser than we might expect: "Have patience, my neighbor... until your donkey or my donkey departs"; and from here begins the story of a popular proverb, recounted by the writer Salama Obeid, about a man afflicted with a cantankerous neighbor who tied his donkey near his house, filling the night with braying and leaving behind noise and chaos.
Despite his wife's insistence on confronting the neighbor, the man chose patience until the days brought something he did not expect; the neighbor inherited land in another village, packed his belongings, left with his donkey, and the problem ended without conflict.
From a simple story like this, the proverb remained a witness to a wisdom summarized in one sentence: Not every problem requires a confrontation; sometimes, patience is more capable of solving it than conflict.
