The Sapling

One day, a bird decided to have a chat with a lonely looking sapling on a mountainside. After it perched itself on its small branch, it introduced itself and asked the sapling why it looked so gloomy on such a bright, wonderful morning. 

The sapling replied, "I feel terribly sad because I just don't think I am good enough. I feel like a failure all the time. Look around me, all these grasses came after me. While they grow like lightning, I remain at my pathetic height, growing slower than ever. And tomorrow, these little ones around me will soon grow my height and soon over-shadow me. I feel like everyone is laughing at me, I hate my life."

After listening patiently, the bird asked, "So, what is it that you really want? To be like these grasses?"

The sapling replied, "Of course! I want to grow as fast. I want to overshadow them, laugh at their faces as they did to me."

Hearing this reply, the bird started to laugh hysterically. This made the sapling really upset. "How dare you laugh at my misfortune! Get off my branch and fly away!"

When the bird calmed down, it replied, "My dear sapling, can't you see who you are?! You are the sapling of a redwood tree - the tallest tree in the world. Your species can live for more than a thousand years! When all these grasses die a hundred times, you will continue to live and thrive, and you will grow hundreds of feet taller than all these grasses you see today. I laugh because you are so busy loathing in self-pity that you don't see your worth."

How many of us are like the redwood sapling, loathing in self pity and self-hatred when watching people around us grow in front of our eyes? How many of us feel like a failure where we just don't seem to succeed? How many of us feel dejected because we just don't see enough results no matter how hard we try? Real, significant growth takes time. Quality requires patience and hard work. When your destiny is to grow taller, become more successful than everyone else, you will take time. If you ever get discouraged, remember the redwood sapling. 

The Secret Door

Once a man found a treasure trove that contained hundreds of gold and precious stones. Because of his secret knowledge, he became an extremely rich and wealthy man. His family relied on him, his foes feared him and his friends were jealous of him. As he was an extremely cautious man, he never told anyone about his secret, not even his wife who he loved more than anything in the world. Instead, he built a castle on top of this treasure, with him only knowing the secret door to the treasure that laid under his castle. Every day, he would walked down the small alley until he came to the secret door of the hidden treasure. This became his routine and his favorite pastime. 

One day, he decided to go hunting with his friends. It came to pass that he met a terrible accident which required his friends to take him home unconscious and barely alive. The accident left him bed-ridden for a long time. By this time, he was terribly afraid with the condition of his hidden treasure. What if one of the servants had found the secret door and stole all the treasures? What if something happened to them? 

Unable to bear the suspense any longer, he decided to go and check on his treasure when everyone else had gone to sleep. When night came, he slowly got up from his bed and walked towards the secret door. He realized that he could no longer see well in the dark. But it didn't matter to him - he knew the way like the back of his hand. 

Finally, he came to the door, took out the key from his neck and turned the doorknob. It didn't open. He tried again, but it won't open. He continued all night with no result. He became so frustrated and angry that he started banging on the door with all his might until he became totally spent and unable to go on. He was slumping near the door when the first ray of light shone through the window. 

Weary and tired, he opened his eyes and realized, he had built other secret doors a long time ago and had used the wrong key to open this one specific door. 

In our lives, we build our own treasures everyday. It may be our job, business, choice of industry, parenting skills, anything. We work at it everyday and somewhere down the line, we make that familiar path, that routine that works well for us, that way we know like the back of our hand. And soon, we start to forget that there are other ways to get things done, other opportunities, other choices. We rely on our known familiar path with a one-track mind, sometimes fearing that the other choices or unfamiliar routes/choices will fail. We become blind, hard of hearing to our own reasons, slave to our own habits of familiarity. 

And then comes the day when that we could no longer turn the key and open that door we are so familiar with. We become confused, frustrated, angry. Some resort to giving up, some continue to bang on the door, some trying in vain to break the door by force -- but all with the same result, frustrated failures. 

However, if we pause and stop -- stop to look away from the door and the unmatched key, widen our horizons, we will see that other doors are there. Doors that we have built long time ago, doors that we have forgotten in us, doors that will lead us to our treasures. It is in us to open our eyes, to see in the light and lift our vision off that single door that refuse to open. 

The Sea and the Beach

There was this beautiful sea that fell in the love with the beach. When the sea bared its heart and feelings to the beach, the beach replied,"I love you too. But I don't know how we can ever live so happily together. You are moody and unpredictable. When you're angry, you don't even have the decency to hold back and flood everything on your way. And, you are so pushy most of the time that you erode my land and keep pushing in my space. If only you are calm and soft all the time like you are today, we will have a much better chance."

When the sea heard this reply, it made her sad. Obviously, the beach had a point and she could do so much better. She knew she loved the beach and wanted to make him happy. His expectations sounded reasonable and she decided to change herself for the better.

So, the sea became immediately calm at once and now hit the beach gently with its waves. And for a time, they were happy together. But when the sea became calm, its under-currents were switched off too. There were many living organisms in the sea that relied critically on that waves for their survival and lives. And, when that under-currents were gone, slowly but certainly, the living organisms inside the sea began to die. The first were the smallest, insignificant ones, followed by bigger ones and so on until the once  beautiful sea was covered with dead, stinking rotten fishes, mammals and things everywhere. 

And as with everything, now the beach was also covered in swarms of rotten, stinking things. So now, both the once beautiful sea and the beach were now filled with dead, rotten, stinking corpses all around. 

In our lives, we all face the dilemma of the sea - that desire to please someone, to make things work with them even if it means changing ourselves -- of our own goals, dreams and desires so we make such person happy. 

We switch-off what we want, who we are telling ourselves that this is for the best. We tell ourselves that 'everyone' compromise at one point in our lives. But, we forget that we are the sea and that our own internal happiness matters so much more than we allow ourselves to believe. This situation may arise with our loved ones, friends, colleagues, bosses, business partners, community or even society at large. 

If the time comes when you have are faced with that situation.  remember this story about the sea and the beach.