Perhaps I should not have told you the story yesterday. After all, telling you about how Dragon Little did not understand how to be a leader was not enough. You needed to know what happened earlier.
It was morning, and Dragon Little had just finished eating her pizza and carrot juice. Dragon Father seemed determined to teach her rather than go on adventure.
“So, Joy, say we’re on adventure, yeah?” He sat on the plank and she, only five years old, sat on his lap. She nodded.
“Say you’re alone because I’m chasing a villain, yeah?”
She nodded.
“And you’re chasing two villains. One goes this way, one goes this way, yeah?”
She nodded again.
“Which one do you chase?”
She scrunched her face. “The more evil one.”
“Good choice, good choice. What if they’re both equally evil?”
“Hmmm… I.... The slowest one! No, the fastest one! The slowest one!”
Dragon Father nodded. At this point I understood what he was doing. Over the last two weeks, it has become harder for Dragon Little to make choices. He was teaching her how to live in the adventures of his dreams. But more than that, and I am sure he did not know it, he was teaching her how to survive the horrible adversity outside of his dream. For one day, she will surely leave, even if neither of them knew it now. And even if she didn’t leave, one day she would surely be found.
“Here’s the trick,” Dragon Father said. “It doesn’t matter which one you choose. The trick is to choose quickly.”
Dragon Little crinkled her face at him. “It does matter!”
“No. Choosing quickly matters. You choose quickly and make it seem like you know what you’re doing. That’s what a leader does.”
Dragon Little jumped off his legs onto the deck of Bonny’s Revenge. “It is important! It is important!” she shouted.
“It isn’t. You just choose. Think about it.”
Dragon Little walked away from him.
“Joy,” he stood up and walked after her. “I’m trying to teach you how to be a leader.”
Ah… And this part I have already told you about yesterday. So now you know how Dragon Father tried to teach Dragon Little leadership, and how that led to something that worried Dragon Father even more.
—Told by The Red Dragon
Watch how I came up with the idea for this post: