"The horse did not lie down": why did he have to lie down?

"The horse did not lie down": why did he have to lie down?

This phrase is a veritable anthem of procrastination. We say that when it's time to finish the job, but we haven't even touched it yet.

Why did the horse have to lie down? In the past, in the villages, farmers always let the horse lie down in the grass before harnessing it. It was believed that this way the animal stretches its muscles, gets less tired and works better.

The logic was hypocritical: if the horse had not yet lain down, it meant that he had not even been taken out of the stable and had not started plowing, the work was frozen at the beginning.

Nowadays we rarely harness horses, but we still remember the "lying horse" when we see before us a mountain of tasks and zero progress.

🌿 Russian proverbs