Once upon a time there was a little cog in a great big machine. At first the cog was happy with its job, spinning round and round, helping the big machine work.
But one day the cog noticed something. There were bigger cogs in the machine, and when they went round and round, important things happened outside the machine.
“Nothing important happens when I go round and round,” thought the little cog, not quite accurately. And it started feeling sorry for itself.
As the days went on, the little cog also felt resentful. “I should be an important cog, making big things happen. It isn’t fair.”
Finally, the little cog had had enough. “If I can’t be a big cog that makes things happen, I won’t be a cog at all.” And it stopped turning.
Immediately the big machine ground to a halt. Strong men came and opened the big machine. They removed the little cog and replaced it with another.
The little cog was terrified. “What have I done? What will happen to me now?”
But the strong men took the little cog to the Machine Shop. There it was reformed into a smaller cog and put into the machine in a new place.
For a little while the cog was relieved. But then the old feelings arose. “I used to be more important. I was able to stop the whole machine! Now I’m too small to be important. This isn’t right!” And it stopped turning.
The machine stopped. Again the men came, removed and replaced the cog. Back to the Machine Shop it went, where it was refashioned into a bolt. The bolt was attached to the base of the big machine to hold it in place.
The bolt was devastated. “I used to be a cog, turning round and round. Now I just sit here, doing nothing. This is boring and I hate it. I don’t want to do this anymore.” So the bolt broke.
This time the machine wobbled but it didn’t stop. But the strong men came anyway and removed the broken bolt, replacing it with another.
The broken bolt went back to the Machine Shop, where it was ground down and fashioned into a nut. It was taken to the base of the big machine and turned round and round to hold the new bolt in place. And there it is to this day, no longer turning, quietly rusting away. And sadly remembering how important it used to be.
The moral of the story: It is better to be a small cog in a big machine than a little nut.