Many of us are aware that we live in a fast paced society. A society where most people’s answer to “How are you?” is “I’m so busy” followed by the million and one things on their to-do list.
So, it’s no wonder that being in a hurry, running from one task to another to get as much as possible done in a day, has also influenced our approach to life’s hardships, struggles and heartbreaks.
We want to achieve something, but we want it now. We want to arrive at our dream life destination, without having to take the steps of the journey to get there. We want to get to the next moment without having to live this one.
It just never seems to happen for us, does it? The more we try to rush through life and skip over to the next moment, the more we find ourselves caught up living the same stressful situations.
If you’ve ever had moments filled with constant struggles, distress or anxiety (maybe you’re in it now), where you hoped you could rush through them or that someone would come along and make it all go away, I recently came across an inspiring parable that hopefully will open your eyes to see the beauty in your struggles.
The Parable of The Butterfly
One warm spring morning, as a man walked in his garden, he found a cocoon of a butterfly. He noticed that it started to move and a small opening appeared. Marveled at such a wondrous sight, he sat and watched the butterfly struggling to force its body through that little opening.
Suddenly, the butterfly remained still. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could, and it could go no further. The man ran back to his house and returned with a pair of scissors to help the butterfly. He slit open the cocoon and the butterfly emerged easily.
Its body was small, swollen and shriveled and its wings were crumpled.
The man, happy to have assisted the butterfly to freedom, continued to watch it, expecting that, at any moment the wings would expand to be able to support the body and it would be able to fly.
But, that’s not what happened!
Instead, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen, shriveled body and crumpled wings, incapable of flying.
What the man, in his kindness and goodwill, did not understand, was that the tight cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening, were nature’s way of strengthening it by forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings, so that it would be ready to fly.
Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our lives
Things don’t go wrong and break our hearts to make us bitter, give up and crawl through life with crumpled wings. They’re nature’s way of preparing and strengthening us, by giving us life lessons, so we can expand our wings and be all we were meant to be.
I know that when we’re going through rough times, it’s not easy and we long for things to go the way we want them to as soon as possible. Having experienced this myself, I have come to understand that every time I tried taking short cuts towards achieving something, it only brought more disappointment and frustration in my life.
I realized that I needed to accept that where I was at the moment, was exactly where I needed to be, to get to where I wanted to go. I may not have always gotten what I wanted, but I’ve always gotten what I needed.
Even though there were days where I wished I could have changed the past or wished I’d done things differently, those moments prepared me for what was coming, which was far more important than wanting to change a past that was long gone.
Struggling through mistakes, every obstacle and challenge I’ve had to face only made me stronger and helped me to discover abilities in doing things I never thought I could do.
We must have the patience to put effort in facing our struggles to learn, grow and move forward in bringing our greatness out into the world.
Always remember that you’re a beautiful part of nature. Don’t try to resist by going against it and it’ll guide you in a gentle, loving way.
