The Story of the Butterfly

15 replies
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 but 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 success will be yours.
#butterfly #story
  • Profile picture of the author Jonathan 2.0
    Banned
    Brilliant. Thanks. : ) Struggles do indeed benefit us.
    Signature
    "Each problem has hidden in it an opportunity so powerful that it literally dwarfs the problem. The greatest success stories were created by people who recognized a problem and turned it into an opportunity."―Joseph Sugarman
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  • Profile picture of the author KnightOnboard
    Inspiring...
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    • Profile picture of the author James Fame
      Struggles are part of life lessons that shape us, for a bigger future.

      People we meet in our struggles may very well be our mentors.

      James Fame
      Signature

      Fire me a pm if you have a question. I build businesses and provide consulting. I do not do finance/money/internet marketing niches. Fitness, self-improvement and various others are welcome.

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  • Profile picture of the author ArinGoldstein
    Very cool, I really needed to read that right now.
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  • Profile picture of the author GottaLift
    Reminds me of an incident when my girlfriend and I were in Cancun on vacation. There was a gentleman who obviously had some sort of physical impairment that made it difficult for him to walk, but he got around none the less. I had noticed him previously, and a couple of days later we were walking around the pool when we came upon him and his wife as they were getting up to leave. He was having some difficulty rising, but he was doing it on his own without his wife's assistance. Suddenly, without my having anticipated it, my girlfriend out of kindness offered to help him. His reaction, although not extreme, was somewhat aggressive in his denial that he needed help. My girlfriend continued longer than she needed to explaining that she only wanted to help, but he obviously wanted no help and in his mind needed no help. What I knew instinctively was his need to be self reliant, but she only saw an opportunity to help someone. I did my best to move her along as both parties were in a situation that they did not want to be in.

    Later that evening on the way to dinner, we happened to run in to the couple and he was somewhat conciliatory. Not by way of apology, but by explaining that he was a Dentist with a thriving practice and that he was fully capable physically of meeting not only the demands of his prestigious (my word based on his attitude) job but was able to function independently as a fully capable man. You could see that he took pride in still being able to master his physical independence, and needed to explain that to my girlfriend so that she understood that his rejection was not personal, it was only because he was not a man who needed help.

    As with the butterfly, if this man had accepted help it would have weakened him, and then he would truly have been crippled. He didn't need help, and therefore he was still strong and in his mind he had no disability.
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  • Profile picture of the author HuzD
    Thanks for sharing.
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  • Profile picture of the author Odahh
    there is purpose to the struggle the butterfly is going through and it i known.

    the problem with many of the struggle we go through in our lives ..is for the most part we don't know the why of the struggle or the lesson of it ..so we seek short term fixes or develop coping/escape behaviors .many spiritual practice actually are just coping or escape behaviors.

    we tend as humans to suffer through the same situation over and over ..in a different form..without ever finding out the changes we must make to end the pattern..heck most of us never even identify the pattern.
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  • Profile picture of the author ronaldperks
    Pretty good story. Thanks for the share
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  • Profile picture of the author mathewhorns
    very nice reading thanks
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  • Hi Arun,
    Thank you for the nice story and the well wishes at the end.

    It is appreciated that you shared the story of the butterfly with us. I can see how some struggle helps to perfect the struggler.

    LLS
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  • Profile picture of the author jay walters
    Wow! I am amazed of this story. Thank you for the share. I am encouraged and happy to know that in every struggle there is a lesson and a victory if we are just patient enough to embrace it and not be hasty. Struggle is a lesson of patience, purpose and victory.
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  • Profile picture of the author Writerdave
    I remember hearing this same story a few years back when I was in high school. I appreciate the morals of the story, as it helped me appreciate the value of struggles.
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  • absolutely nice and very inspiring.. sometimes..we really need to struggle in order for us to fly..
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  • Profile picture of the author danolifecoach
    Thanks that is a poignant story!!
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