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 from an old mountain man was wiser than we might expect: (Be patient, my neighbor... until your donkey leaves or mine does); and thus begins the story of a popular proverb told by the writer Salama Obeid, about a man afflicted with a cranky neighbor who would tie 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 what he had not expected; the neighbor inherited land in another village, packed his belongings, moved away with his donkey, and the problem ended without a conflict.
From a simple tale like this, the proverb remains a testament to a wisdom summarized in one sentence: Not every problem requires a confrontation; sometimes patience is more capable of solving it than dispute.
