A primary school teacher took his students out for a picnic to a countryside park. As the teacher and his students entered the park, one of the kids noticed something unusual in the bushes. He went there and began observing something very curiously. Then he called his teacher and said very innocently, “Sir, the little creature is stuck in a mesh, we must save it”. The teacher after looking at the creature told the kid to join the other students and leave it as it is. The kid insisted that the teacher help out the little creature. The teacher refused and even warned him not to touch it. The kid left the spot with moist eyes. After sometime, he dodged the teacher and pulled out the creature out of the mesh. His excitement vanished as soon as he found his teacher just next to him. The teacher with disappointment told the little kid:
“Son, you had good intentions, I never doubt, and I rather should appreciate how kind and helpful you were trying to be to this baby butterfly, but look, you have almost killed it. This mesh is a cocoon and butterflies grow inside them. The life journey of butterflies starts from here. The baby butterfly you thought you saved is unable to fly properly because its wings are not grown strong enough. Your help indeed brought the butterfly early to the world but it will suffer for the longer run. It can’t fly higher as its wings are weak. It was its struggle to break out of the cocoon, not yours.”
This story teaches us a very important lesson. The shortcuts may seem to be a blessing but are curse in the longer run. They restrict our flights. It is almost instinctive that we want easier ways to get things done. Remember, when we fight our battles by ourselves, without taking help from others or without involving others, we develop the necessary skills and abilities to endure the worst. When we fight for what we want without getting help, our inner strength grows.
We all have demons in our lives. Often, life is suffering. The cold hard truth of the world is that time is relentless. The world continues to spin regardless of your emotions and circumstances. Thus, in our journey of life we must keep moving and remove our own obstacles. There is also beauty in recognising that everyone else is climbing similar, but entirely different, mountains. We should always follow the silver rule that while climbing the mountain, “Do unto others as you would want done unto you”.
We sometimes feel exhausted while climbing the mountain but that’s quite natural. Remember the famous saying, “The mountain will exhaust you before it is able to give you its view”. Never give up, keep hitting the cocoon until it breaks and you come out of it the strongest. If you are tired, take rest, but never stop climbing the mountain. The circumstances may discourage you: the rains, the snow, the slippery terrain, the thirst and the hunger. They are just obstacles. Uphold your commitment, your dream.

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Shabeer Rather