Story of a 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 force its body through that little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and it could go no farther.

So the man decided to help the butterfly. He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily. However, it had a swollen body and small, shrivelled wings. The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected the butterfly to fly. He thought that at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand and the body would contract, so that the butterfly could take off.

Neither happened!

In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shrivelled wings.

It never was able to fly.

What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand was that the restricting cocoon was the struggle required for the butterfly - in order for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening, this was 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, and we will never ever be able to fly without it...