The Millipede’s Dilemma

A Classic Tale About Too Much Thinking

The Millipede’s Dilemma is a timeless story about overthinking, or pathological thinking… how the mind, in its attempt to understand, can interrupt the natural intelligence that’s already at work.

In this gentle Zen-style children’s tale, a millipede moves effortlessly… until a simple question causes everything to freeze. What follows is a playful and profound reminder of something we’ve all experienced: the moment thinking steps in, the flow can disappear.

This story isn’t just for children. It’s for anyone who’s ever overthought a conversation, tried too hard to relax, analyzed themselves out of clarity, or wondered why things felt easier before they started thinking about them.

The story points toward a deeper truth: sometimes clarity doesn’t arrive through better answers, but it appears when the one who needs the answer softens, loosens, or briefly disappears.

Sit back, enjoy the story, and notice what happens when you stop trying to figure it out.
In Zen this is called a “beginner’s mind” or a “don’t know” mind.

Kid’s Description:
A little bug with many legs walks just fine until someone asks it, “How do you move all those feet?” When it starts thinking too hard about each step, it gets confused and can’t walk anymore, showing that sometimes things work best when we don’t overthink and just do them naturally.