Plato's Seven Principles

After many years of meditation by the river, Plato discovered seven principles for successfully achieving his goals. Here are his seven mystical principles and explanations on how you can use them to reach your own goals.

Creating Crystal Balls

During the first month when Plato arrived on E-VOUS Island, he spent a lot of time in his shell imagining how life could be different and how he wanted things to turn out. Now, some people might call him a dreamer, but these dreams helped Plato become the platypus he is today. Plato used those dreams, all that time he spent wishing and hoping in the darkness of his shell, to motivate himself to accomplish his goals. And because he thought about his dreams with such vividness, he had a very clear image of the platypus he wanted to become. The specificity and thoughtfulness we bring to our goals can help us achieve them.

Parting the Mist

There was a time, when Plato was still a tiny platypus in half-shell diapers, when he went to the river early one morning. The mist was still heavy in the air and he couldn’t see where he was going. Before he knew it, he’d fallen in the river and swallowed a big bill-full of water. He became all turned around, floating down the river, and he worried about getting eaten by crocodiles. Thankfully, he washed ashore near the Zen Rock Garden, but the unexpected dunk taught him to pay close attention to where he was going. It wouldn’t do to fall straight into a crocodile’s mouth. Plato applied this lesson to setting his goals. He tried to part the mist of the future and plan as thoroughly as he could how he would reach his goals. If his goal was to explore more of the island around him, he would decide ahead of time which direction he would go this week and how far he would go. This way he knew in advance how much he could accomplish in a given time. He wouldn’t be depressed if he didn’t explore the entire island in a month. Planning ahead made his goals achievable.

Digging for Buried Treasure

When Plato felt down and the world seemed like such a horrible place and he thought he just wasn’t platypus enough to face it, he began to remember all the long days and nights he had already survived, and those memories helped him go out and conquer another scary day. He reminded himself that years ago, when he knew only half the things he knew today, he had been able to survive all on his own by only foraging for food and sleeping near the river. He had survived floods and crocodiles and being separated from his parents and all sorts of dangers in the wild. As soon as Plato had these memories in mind again, he felt tough and strong and ready to go tackle the world.

Shadowboxing in the Dark

Plato’s biggest danger on the Walla-Walla River was crocodiles. The mere thought of them woke him in the middle of the night, shaking with fear. Plato knew that if he was going to survive on his own, he would have to learn how to escape a crocodile attack. So he began to imagine how an attack might happen, and what he would do. If a crocodile sprang out of the water at him, Plato would jump up in the air, spin around, and smack him with his tail. The crocodile’s own momentum would send him past Plato onto the shore, giving Plato enough time to scamper over the crocodile’s back and into the tall weeds by the river. The crocodile would be confused, snapping first on one side where Plato was, and then realizing Plato had gone over his back and snapping that way. But Plato would already be gone. If Plato heard the crocodile go into the river, Plato would go towards his hole. If he heard the crocodile come into the weeds, he’d slip into the river. Either way, he would have a way to cover his tracks. Plato spent hours practicing jumping, spinning, smacking the wall of his hole with his tail. He called this ‘shadowboxing in the dark.’ Eventually, he became so powerful that the booming sound of his tail would shake the ground, send tremors across the river, and scare all the crocodiles away. They grew so scared of the sound that Plato never had a chance to test his technique on a live crocodile. But the rumors on E-VOUS Island say that if Plato ever hit a crocodile with his tail, the crocodile would land in South America, have a face as flat as a pancake, and be a vegetarian dedicated to living a peaceful existence with all forms of life.

Dreaming Future Splendor

There were many days on E-VOUS Island when Plato did not feel like going outside to forage for food or search the island for signs of his parents. Some days the only thing he wanted to do was curl up and sleep through the entire day. When these times happened, Plato would keep his eyes closed and begin to dream of a future when he had accomplished all his goals. He dreamed of a day when he knew every inch of E-VOUS Island. Crocodiles would fear his very name. Koala bears came from far and wide to catch a glimpse of the famous platypus. His parents had an island right down the river from him and visited every day for tea. On the days when Plato felt too tired to work on his goals, these thoughts gave him the energy to turn his dreams into reality.

Dancing in the Snow

Sometimes Plato was unable to achieve his goals because of outside forces, like the weather or predators. In the spring, the monsoons brought lots of rain and made it very difficult for Plato to look for his parents. He also noticed that when the moon grew big in the sky, the crocodiles seemed even hungrier. When Plato picked up on patterns like these, he would sit down and think of a way to achieve his goals despite these obstacles. He realized that although his goal was to spend four hours a day looking for clues about parents, he could spend five hours a day looking for them most of the year, but during the rainy season he could catch up on his other goals. As for the crocodiles, Plato learned to stock up on food early in the month and use the full moon as an excuse to take some time off!

Summoning the Wiseplatypus

One day, when Plato was feeling particularly down in the dumps, a small, old platypus with a long beard appeared hovering in the air beside him. This ancient platypus had slanted eyes, spoke with a funny accent, and called himself Evocrates. Plato had never seen another platypus on E-VOUS Island, and he was thrilled to meet Evocrates. But Evocrates only told Plato to work harder on his goals, told him a short, motivational story before he disappeared. After that, Plato only saw him when he was feeling particularly sad or unmotivated. Although Evocrates was distant and mysterious, he seemed to be Plato’s biggest fan and was a great coach to him.