One beautiful afternoon, a young man was taking a stroll around his garden when he noticed a cocoon of a butterfly on a leaf. Thrilled to see a fantastic transformation of nature, he watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through a little hole in its cocoon.
After a while, the butterfly seemed to stop making any progress. It was struggling so hard to get out! It looked like it couldn’t break free! It looked desperate! It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and could go no further.
The kind-hearted man decided to help the butterfly. He got a pair of scissors and tweaked the cocoon to make a larger opening for the butterfly. The butterfly emerged quickly without any struggle. But unlike any other butterflies in his garden, it had a swollen body with tiny, withered wings.
The man was happy that he made the butterfly come out of its cocoon without much struggle. He continued to watch the butterfly expecting that, at any moment, the wings would dry out, enlarge and expand to support the swollen body, which would contract in time.
Unfortunately, neither its wings expanded nor the swollen body reduced. Instead, the butterfly crawled around with shrivelled wings and a swollen body, never able to fly through its life.
Although with good intentions, the man hindered the growth of the butterfly. The continuous effort from the butterfly to come out of its cocoon would force out the fluid stored in the body to convert it into the wings. In haste to help the butterfly, the man did not understand that the restricting cocoon and the struggle were the keys to the butterfly’s beautiful body and wings.
Sometimes struggles and challenges are exactly what we need to grow in our lives. Like, the struggle to get out of the cocoon gives a butterfly its beautiful wings; struggles in our life make us stronger and give us wings to fly.