Some short inspirational stories

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Value yourself

A speaker started his lecture by showing a $20 note. He asked: “who wants this?” There was no surprise to see that most of the people lifted their hands. He offered to give the money to one of them but insisted that he will do something to it.

He crumpled the paper money and showed it again and repeated the question. Still, everyone raised the hand. He then put the money on the ground and stepped onto it and then raised it again and offered it to the public.

The people gathered there still showed interest to take that money despite seeing how dirty the note was. 

He said: 

"No matter what I did to this money, you all still wanted this. You all went in favor of my offer just because the value of the money never decreased despite what I did to it. Similarly, value yourself despite the painful conditions or failures”

Sharpen your ‘axe’

There was a newly joined woodcutter and the king was really impressed by his dedication towards his work. Out of encouragement, he started giving his best in work and cut 18 trees in the first month and the king was glad.

The next month he put in the same effort but could cut only 15 trees. And the third month, he still tried his best but could cut only 12 trees. The king visited him the third month and talked about his decrease in productivity.

He explained that he might have lost his strength or got too old to do the work. 

The king asked him: “when was the last time you sharpened your ax?” To the surprise, he has not even done it once in the last three months. That was the only reason why he couldn’t cut more trees.

Shake off problems

A man and his donkey were on the way to grazing while the donkey fell into a huge pit. The man was shaken and tried hard to pull off his favorite donkey up to the ground. Despite his attempts, he failed to bring the donkey back. But he can’t leave the donkey to starve and die with pain for days.

So he decided to bury him alive and make his death smoother. So he started pouring soil over the donkey in the pit. When he poured the soil, the donkey felt the load and shakes it off and he steps on it.

He does the same every time when the soil was poured on his body. In the end, he reached the ground level and easily walked away to graze in the green pastures.

See opportunity in obstacles

Once there was a king who was curious but wealthy. He decided to test his fellow people to know who has a got a good attitude in life and who would spare some time for country’s progress. He placed a huge boulder right at the middle of the road and hid in a nearby place to see if anyone would make an attempt to move it off.

He saw some wealthy merchants and courtiers passing by the road. None of them made any attempt to move it off but simply walked away while some others blamed the king for not maintaining roads.

Later, a peasant came the way with a load of vegetables and saw the boulder. He kept his load down and tried to move the boulder away. After strenuous effort, he succeeded in moving it away. He saw a purse lying in the place of the boulder.

It contained many gold coins and a note from the king which read ‘this is the reward for the person who moves the boulder away’.