Learning from the Struggles Make Us Shine

One never gets too old to learn. Every day provides us with an opportunity to learn new lessons of life knowingly or unknowingly. All we need is to look at it in a positive manner.

The purpose of each one of our lives is to develop/create ourselves into a better person than yesterday. Life comes in with assorted difficulties, but we need to remind ourselves that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure; no man’s life is a cake walk. Learning from the experiences that our life throws at us and inspiring ourselves from the lessons learnt through that struggle will make us shine.

Every day is a struggle. Life is tossing out difficulties and unexpected troubles at me. Contemplating about the pipeline of issues, I came across an inspiring story which stimulated me. It gave me the strength to snarl back at the troop of difficulties. I have decided to not writhe in pain, but face the affliction with vigor. As the trouble will fall weak because it not only gives me the power to be determined, but gives me an opportunity to learn. So, I muster up all my strength for another opportunity to learn, to improve myself. This gives me a chance to make myself prepared for the future and learn from my mistakes. It rejuvenates me.  Leonardo da Vinci rightly said, “Learning never exhausts the mind.”

Here, I share with you the story so you look at your difficulties as an opportunity to rise and shine in the future. Hope you shape yourselves into a beautiful butterfly and spread the colours of your knowledge and happiness to the needy and deprived.

Many of us know that a beautiful and colourful butterfly comes from an unappealing worm! Here is the story of a caterpillar that was never able to live a life like a butterfly!

A little boy was playing outdoors and found a fascinating caterpillar. He carefully picked it up and took it home to show his mother. He asked his mother if he could keep it, and she said he could if he would take good care of it.

The little boy got a large jar from his mother and put plants to eat, and a stick to climb on, in the jar. Every day he watched the caterpillar and brought it new plants to eat.  

One day the caterpillar climbed up the stick and started acting strangely. The boy worriedly called his mother who came and understood that the caterpillar was creating a cocoon. The mother explained to the boy how the caterpillar was going to go through a metamorphosis and become a butterfly.

The little boy was thrilled to hear about the changes his caterpillar would go through. He watched every day, waiting for the butterfly to emerge. One day it happened, a small hole appeared in the cocoon and the butterfly started to struggle to come out.

At first the boy was excited, but soon he became concerned. The butterfly was struggling so hard to get out! It looked like it couldn't break free! It looked desperate! It looked like it was making no progress!

The boy was so concerned he decided to help. He ran to get scissors, got it and then came back. He snipped the cocoon to make the hole bigger and the butterfly quickly emerged!

As the butterfly came out the boy was surprised. It had a swollen body and small, shrivelled wings. He continued to watch the butterfly expecting that, at any moment, the wings would dry out, enlarge and expand to support the swollen body. He knew that in time the body would shrink and the butterfly's wings would expand.

But neither happened!

The butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shrivelled wings. It never could fly…

What the boy in his kindness and haste did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening were nature's way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.

Sometimes, struggles are exactly what we need in our life. If nature allowed us to go through our life without any obstacles, it would cripple us. We would not be as strong as what we could have been.

In fact, it is the struggle that causes you to develop your ability to fly.

If we don’t want to undergo any struggle, we won’t be able to fly! 

I'm most proud of the blessings that God has bestowed upon me in my life. He's given me the vision to truly see that you can fall down, but you can still get back up. Rising up and learning from the fall gives twice the strength to fight back. Hopefully, I'll learn from my mistakes and have the opportunity to strengthen and improve in the next thing I do. One can lead a life with contentment by continuous learning as life never stops teaching.