Struggle For Happiness - Lessons Learned From a Butterfly

The story of the butterfly

A man found a cocoon of a butterfly.

One day a small opening appeared.

He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours

as it struggled to squeeze its body through the tiny hole.

Then it stopped, as if it couldn’t go further.

So the man decided to help the butterfly.

He took a pair of scissors and

snipped off the remaining bits of cocoon.

The butterfly emerged easily but

it had a swollen body and shriveled wings.

The man continued to watch it,

expecting that any minute the wings would enlarge

and expand enough to support the body,

Neither happened!

In fact the butterfly spent the rest of its life

crawling around.

It was never able to fly.

What the man in his kindness

and haste did not understand:

The restricting cocoon and the struggle

required by the butterfly to get through the opening

was a way of forcing the fluid from the body

into the wings so that it would be ready

for flight once that was achieved.

Sometimes struggles are exactly

what we need in our lives.

Going through life with no obstacles would cripple us.

We will not be as strong as we could have been

and we would never fly.

So have a nice day and struggle a little and teach well.

What lessons can we learn from the story?

First Lesson
We learned that sometime struggles are needed in our life to propel ourselves into greater heights. We need to solve problems to evolve and learn how to change to a better person. Problems can be a helpful obstacle that once we manage to get past it, we will gain tremendous insights and experience that will be most helpful to our personal growth.

We can either see problems as something desirable or something undesired. Most people will find that they would like to have no problems at all in their life and some people see problems as challenges that will propel them to greater heights. It is our own perception that derives the meaning of problems. You can see problems in a good way or bad way and either way you are right. The only thing that matters is how you define them.

Most people want to have a smooth sailing life with no problems at all. It is definitely not possible and so what if you have life without problem? Wouldn’t it be boring if everything that happened was what you expected? If you can achieve anything without hard work, will there be a feeling of ecstasy after you achieve something great? Why people like sports, start a business or playing games? Because it is hard,challenging and winning it makes you feel proud of your achievement.

Life is definitely full of problems and we will learn to view it as challenges and be stronger and better each and everyday.

Second Lesson
In the story we have seen that the guy helped to cut the cocoon and allow the butterfly to come out of the cocoon easily out of his kindness. But is he really helping the butterfly? He indirectly caused the butterfly to crawl on the floor for the rest of its life even though he don’t want to.

We have learned that we need to be more aware of the situation before lending help. Do not offer help that allows the person a temporary relief and cause him to lose out more in life. Do not offer people the easy way out when you know that they can do it. Allow them to shine and prosper! Do you let your classmate copy your work because they don’t know how to solve the questions? Do you offer to help people around you and let them have the easy way out and unknowingly causing them unable to shine on their own? If you are, don’t do it. Let them grow and shine, I am sure that down the road they will be grateful to you.