Every culture has its cautionary tales about people who can’t see beyond their own circumstances. In the West, we might say someone is “living in a bubble” or “can’t see the forest for the trees.” But the Chinese have a particularly vivid expression for this kind of narrow-mindedness: jǐng dǐ zhī wā — the frog in the well.

You’ve probably seen those old illustrations: a small frog sits at the bottom of a stone well, gazing up at a circle of sky. From its perspective, that’s the entire universe. It can’t imagine oceans, mountains, or cities beyond that rim. And honestly, why would it? The well is everything the frog has ever known.

The story comes from Zhuangzi, one of the most beloved philosophers of ancient China, who lived around the 4th century BCE. If you’re not familiar with Zhuangzi, think of him as China’s answer to a clever storyteller who happened to have some very deep thoughts about the nature of reality, freedom, and what it means to live well. His book, also called the Zhuangzi, is packed with parables, and the frog in the well is one of its most famous.