A family were sitting down to eat waiting for their son to come in from the fields. The son eventually arrived an hour late.
His father asked why he'd taken so long, and the boy replied, “I was helping the wheat grow”.
The next morning the father went out to the field and all the wheat had died. He asked his son, “What did you do”, “I pulled all the stalks up a little to help them grow quicker”, he replied, solemnly.
This ancient Chinese tale teaches a valuable life lesson. One can't rush Mother Nature, and the human experience isn't separate from this process.
Like the wheat, we can't grow any quicker than life will allow. Sure, we can facilitate personal growth, but we can't bypass experiences, pit-stops and deviations in a quest to get ahead quicker than life permits.
We tend to make the mistake of thinking that wrong turns or bad decisions (in hindsight) have slowed our progress, without realising that regret is such a pointless exercise, because every step we have taken to get where we are today was a fundamental part of the process. T
he next decision you make today has been enabled by your journey, and is only so in its entirety because of the events that preceded it.
As a child, I remember wanting get older, to get into double figures. I'd have done anything to be grown up. Little did I know that the adults around me would have traded places with my youthful, care-free self at the drop of a hat.
I'd have done anything to be taller, standing on tip toes and pretending to be bigger than I was. Sadly, this innocence grows into grasping as we mature, and society doesn't help in encouraging us to synchronize the mind with nature. Instead we keep wanting to rush the personal growth process; to have it all, to be better, more learned, more accomplished, to be the best we can as quickly as possible.
Don't be the boy in the wheat field.
Don't be impatient with life.
Enjoy every stage of the growing process and get as much out of every passing moment as you can.
Don't miss the beauty of the flora and fauna on your way to the top of the mountain.
Remember that time is irrelevant to ‘life'; it only exists in our minds. Nothing makes Mother-Nature laugh more than plans and the human perception of time and achievement.
Personal growth and development is a natural, spiritual process that needs room to breathe and mindfulness to develop.
