The Camel Who Would Not Move

The sages told the Pandavas of the camel that won a boon and was undone by its own laziness - a short tale, but a sharp one, of how sloth and the love of ease bring ruin even upon those who have gained great gifts.

There was once a camel that lived in the wild, and it took into its head to perform austerities, hard penance, in the hope of winning a boon from the gods. So the camel gave itself up to fierce penance for a long time, enduring the discipline of the austere life, until at last the Creator, pleased or wearied by its persistence, appeared to grant it the reward it sought. 'What boon do you desire?' the god asked the camel. And the camel, when it considered what it most wanted, asked for a thing that revealed the bent of its nature: it asked that its neck might be made very long, so that it could reach far-off grass and leaves without troubling to walk to them.