The Fable of the Ears

Once upon a time there were two ears sitting on a park bench. One ear said to the other, “Listen! Can you hear that? It’s an ice cream truck.” The other ear turned to listen and sure enough, heard the ice cream truck. The ears, of course, could not eat ice cream, but they loved the song that the truck played and the sounds of kids shouting gleefully. They both listened very intently to the melody, tuning out everything else around them. And then they were run over by a cement truck, which they had not heard, coming up behind them.

The moral: You cannot pay full attention to two things at once.