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Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Easier Way ends up being the tougher way

Once there was a lark singing in the forest. A farmer was traveling through the forest. The lark stopped him and asked, "What do you have in the box and where are you going?"

The farmer replied that he had worms and that he was going to the market to trade them for some feathers.

The lark said, "I have many feathers. I will pluck one and give it to you and that will save me looking for worms." The farmer gave the worms to the lark and the lark plucked a feather and gave it in return.

The next day the same thing happened and the day after and on and on until a day came that the lark had no more feathers. Now it couldn't fly and hunt for worms. It started looking ugly and stopped singing and very soon it died.

What is the moral of the story?

The moral is quite clear what the lark thought was an easy way to get food turned out to be the tougher way after all.

Isn't the same thing true in our lives? Many times we look for the easier way, which really ends up being the tougher way.

THE STRUGGLE


Trials in life can be tragedies or triumphs, depending on how we handle them. Triumphs don't come without effort.

A biology teacher was teaching his students how a caterpillar turns into a butterfly. He told the students that in the next couple of hours, the butterfly would struggle to come out of the cocoon. But no one should help the butterfly. Then he left.

The students were waiting and it happened. The butterfly struggled to get out of the cocoon, and one of the students took pity on it and decided to help the butterfly out of the cocoon against the advice of his teacher. He broke the cocoon to help the butterfly so it didn't have to struggle anymore. But shortly afterwards the butterfly died.

When the teacher returned, he was told what happened. He explained to this student that by helping the butterfly, he had actually killed it because it is a law of nature that the struggle to come out of the cocoon actually helps develop and strengthen its wings. The boy had deprived the butterfly of its struggle and the butterfly died.

Apply this same principle to our lives. Nothing worthwhile in life comes without a struggle. As parents we tend to hurt the ones we love most because we don't allow them to struggle to gain strength.

The magic in you

I would like to tell you a story if you are willing to read on, I think it can change your thinking and could change your life.

A bear is silently strolling around in the woods looking for food.

Out of the corner of her eye she spots a mountain lion, silently creeping toward her.  The bear slowly turns her head in the other direction and spots another mountain lion.  Her worst fears are being realized.  She is being ambushed, if there are two, there will be more.

She quickly turns here head and spots another two lions.  As her head turns she feels a hot searing pain in her back as one of the lions has pounced on her and dug his claws deep into her back.  The bear struggles but can't find her roar to shout for help and to scare the lions away. 

Another lion sinks his teeth into her leg.  And the other two lions pounces on her back and front.

For a few moments the bear gives up and thinks she is good as dead.  The a picture of her cubs jumps into her mind.  She sees the cubs looking for their mother, looking for food and at that moment she knows the cubs will die if she does not go back to the large hole under the oak tree, where they are dwelling.

Another claw just misses her eye as she sees the lion about to bite into her neck.  The three cubs keep coming back into her mind and suddenly she rises.....  

She rises to shake off two of the lions and lets out an almighty roar.....she sahkes another lion from her leg and swats another as he pounces again, she looks at the lion face on and roars another massive, bellowing roar.

The lions stops in its tracks....another roar confirms his suspicion that this bear wants to live, and will do anything to survive.  He turns and walks awya and the other lions join him.

The bear, limps slowly back to her cubs and cradles them in her fur as she feeds them.

The magic in you.

We all have magic in us, we all have that spark that says I am not going to settle for a mundane life, I want to live, I want to dance, I want to do something, I want to live and feel totally alive.

The trick to life is finding your magic, finding the meaning that will drive you forward every single day of your life. So many of us have given up.

I've heard countless stories  of men and women who have retired after working for 45 years, only to die a few years after retirement, their fight had left them, they hadn't found the magic inside of them.

You goal in life should be to find the magic inside of you, find it quick and keep driving toward it every single day of your life, you truly are magical, you might not realize it but the magic is there.

When you have found the magic, there's only one thing you need to do with it................ Share it with others.