Struggles in life

Once upon a time in a land far far away, there was a wonderful old man who loved everything. Animals, spiders, insects...

One day while walking through the woods the nice old man found a cocoon of a butterfly. He took it home.

A few days later, a small opening appeared; he sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled¹ 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 emerged² easily.

But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled 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 crawling³ around with a swollen body and shriveled 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 fluid⁴ 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 we were allowed to go through our life without any obstacles⁵, it would cripple us. We would not be as strong as what we could have been.

And we could never fly.

Annotations:

struggled¹              :v. 挣扎

emerged²:       v. 出现，出来

crawling³        v. 爬

fluid⁴:            n. 流体，液体

obstacles⁵:      n. 障碍