The Story of the Butterfly
One day a man found a cocoon of a butterfly.
He saw a small opening in the cocoon. He had never seen a butterfly emerge from a cocoon so he was really intrigued to see the process unfold.
He sat down 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 gone as far as it could through the whole, and had gotten stuck. It stopped moving completely.
The man felt horrible for the little butterfly so in his kindness, he decided to help it get free. He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon.
The butterfly then emerged easily. But the man noticed that its body was swollen, and its wings were small and shriveled.
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. But neither happened. In fact, the little butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It was never able to fly.
What the man had done in his well intentioned kindness and impatience was fail to realize that the restrictive cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening was Nature‟s way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings.
This would help the wings fully develop, so that once the butterfly achieved its freedom from the cocoon, it would be ready for flight.
For the butterfly, freedom and flight could only come after its struggle. But the man hadn‟t known this.
By depriving the butterfly of a struggle and trying to rush it out of cocoon, he unintentionally crippled it, preventing the butterfly from becoming everything it was supposed to be.
We need to have the strength and wisdom not to be tempted to rush through the process and misinterpret what‟s actually happening.
We need to know the difference between when we are stuck and when we are simply still in our cocoon.
We need to give ourselves the time to grow our wings so when we emerge from the experience, we will know how to fly.
See, sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life. If nature just allowed us to go through life without any obstacles, it would cripple us. Without them, we would not be as strong as we could be and we would never learn how to fly.
This is a great short story that reminds us that everything in life has its own reason and purpose. Sometimes it‟s necessary to go through difficult times in order to learn and grow.
It‟s not easy to realize this when you‟re in a lot of pain but eventually you will see how this experience has opened a new door for you and unfolded a new path; a path of better understanding yourself and others.
Then you will be grateful for the struggle you had to go through because it helped you transform from a caterpillar into a beautiful butterfly.