“Ganga and her milk pot. Basically the story is that, it’s someone who, so you get a new job and okay, for example, if you’re an aspiring actor, you go for an audition, and the director really likes you and calls you and says you were very good, and we’ll be in touch. And you, the actress, take that and say, ‘Oh my god, he loved me! I’m so good, I’m going to be selected for this role, I’m going to be a phenomenal star, I’m gonna be super rich, a super famous person mingling with celebrities.’ And the next day you get a call saying you didn’t get the part. So Ganga and the milk pot, she carries her milk pot and she’s got milk in there and she thinks she’s gonna sell the milk and get the money and then the pot falls down on the ground and it breaks and all her milk spills.

This is what we were taught as kids, it’s an Indian folktale, the moral is don’t think so far ahead, and start making plans and stuff, and then you already jump to step 10 from one thing.”

This is a proverb of sorts that my mother told me when I asked her if she remembered anything her mother had told her from childhood, any stories or morals. This is her word for word retelling of that story, and it means a lot to her, because when she was growing up, her mother would tell her and her sisters this story all the time. She says it’s taught her to not get too ahead of oneself.