There once was a man who would often gaze at the roses in the park opposite his home. He would see the beautiful flowers, the bees and butterflies and people enjoying the park. He wished he could get closer and experience the park, but was worried the rose’s thorns would hurt him. He was scared that the thorns from the roses would spike into him and hurt, so he stayed away and just longingly watched from a distance.

After much thought, he came up with a plan, a cunning plan, a most ingenious plan!

He would wear a suit of armour and then he could go into the rose garden without the thorns hurting him.

Pleased with his plan he went clunk, clunk, clunk into the garden with his suit of armour and he was right. The thorns couldn’t hurt him.

But he found a new problem. 

When he tried to look more closely at the roses he found the visor of his armour blocked his view.

When he tried to bend down and smell the roses, the front of his visor stopped him from getting close enough to smell them and the armour made bending and moving hard.

He tried to pick a rose to bring it closer but found his armoured gauntlet didn’t allow him to pick the flowers.

He began to not enjoy the rose garden, sure he was protected, the thorns didn’t hurt him and he was safe. But he lost the beauty and the pleasure of the rose garden. He couldn’t enjoy the experience of the garden. He saw others walking freely in the garden and became upset and angry.

He went back to his house, back to the window he clunked, watching the garden he thought to himself what to do …

What do you think he should do?

Take off his armour?

Keep it on and try again?

Shut the curtains and pretend the garden isn’t here?

Or something else …