As I’ve often noted, I love paradoxes, koans, and aphorisms, as well as all kinds of teaching stories or statements. For a long time, I’ve thought it might be fun to write a series of fables. A fable is a specific kind of teaching story; typically it’s a short story conveying a moral that features animals as characters. You probably know the fable of the Tortoise and the Hare and the Grasshopper and the Ant.

Because I have an interest in fables, when I was wandering through the library one day, I couldn’t resist pulling out American writer William March’s book, 99 Fables.

And I was particularly struck by Fable #4, “The Persimmon Tree,” about a loophole-invoking possum.

In the fable, a possum looks longingly at the delicious persimmons hanging from the fox’s tree, and thinks about how badly he wants one. “’No,’ he said. ‘The fox is my friend and benefactor, and he trusts me. Oh, no!’”

Several days later, he stares again at the persimmon tree, where the fruits had reached their finest flavor. His mouth waters, but he turns away and goes home.

There, he sees his wife, who says, “‘What a morning this would be for eating persimmons! When I think how sweet they are…I could break down and cry my eyes out.’”

The possum says, “’That settles it. I’ll take those persimmons if it’s the last thing I ever do…Why, what sort of a creature would I be if I deprived my sweet, faithful wife of persimmons—endangering her health and making her cry her dear eyes out.’”

The fable concludes: “We often do for the sake of others what we would like to do for ourselves.”

In my book Better Than Before, I write about the 21 strategies we can use to make or break our habits. Sometimes people protest that 21 is too many, and tell me, “Just give me the three best ones,” but the fact is, some of these strategies work really well for some people but are actually counterproductive for others—such as the Strategy of Accountability. Some strategies are only available to us at certain times of our lives, such as the Strategy of the Clean Slate.

I loved writing the book Better Than Before, because the topic of habits is so fascinating to me, but it’s true that I had a favorite chapter – the chapter on the Strategy of Loophole-Spotting.

Now, what’s a loophole? A loophole is a justification that we invoke to excuse us from following through with a particular action or habit. We’re not mindfully making exceptions, we’re invoking justifications to excuse us from keeping this particular habit in this particular situation.

Loopholes matter, because when we try to form and keep habits, we often search for loopholes. However, if we catch ourselves in the act of loophole-seeking, we can perhaps avoid employing the loophole, and improve our chances of keeping the habit. That’s the Strategy of Loophole-spotting.

I identify the ten — yes, ten — categories of loopholes. For instance, there’s the false choice loophole (that’s my personal favorite), the fake self-actualization loophole, the tomorrow loophole, the dangerously applicable one-coin loophole, and many others. 

In the fable, the possum is invoking the “concern for others” loophole. Or course, sometimes we do things out of genuine and necessary concern for others. However, with this loophole, we tell ourselves that we’re acting out of consideration for others and making generous, unselfish decisions, when really we’re letting ourselves off the hook. Or we decide we must do something in order to fit in to a social situation, because we don’t want to make the needed effort to go against the grain. For instance:

• It will hurt my girlfriend’s feelings if I get up early to write.
• I’m not buying this junk food for me, I have to keep it around for others.
• So many people need me, there’s no time to focus on my own health.
• I don’t want to seem holier-than-thou.
• My adult son keeps telling me not to bother to bring homemade desserts for Thanksgiving, but I wouldn’t think of letting him down, even though it’s so much trouble.
• Changing my schedule would inconvenience other people. 
• I can’t ask my partner to stay with the kids while I go to class.
• At this dinner, everyone is drinking, and it would seem weird if I didn’t drink. (This loophole comes up a lot with drinking. Teenagers aren’t the only ones to feel peer pressure to drink.)

Do you agree with the moral of the fable, that, like the possum,“We often do for the sake of others what we would like to do for ourselves”?

Have you ever done something that you thought you shouldn’t, for the benefit of someone else? This loophole is tricky, because sometimes to do that is an admirable expression of virtue, and other times, a subtle form of self-deception.