Struggle

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.

Then the man decided to help the butterfly, so he took a pair of

scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly

then emerged easily. But it had a swollen body and small, shrivelled

wings.

The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that,

at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to

support the body, which would contract in time.

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 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. And we could never fly...