A man spent hours watching a butterfly struggling to emerge from its cocoon.
It managed to make a small hole, but its body was too large to get through it. After a
long struggle, it appeared to be exhausted and remained absolutely still.
The man decided to help the butterfly and, with a pair of scissors, he cut open
the cocoon, thus releasing the butterfly. However, the butterfly's body was very small
and wrinkled and its wings were all crumpled.
The man continued to watch, hoping that, at any moment, the butterfly would
open its wings and fly away. Nothing happened; in fact, the butterfly spent the rest of
its brief life dragging around its shrunken body and shrivelled wings, incapable of
flight.
What the man - out of kindness and his eagerness to help - had failed to
understand was that the tight cocoon and the efforts that the butterfly had to make in
order to squeeze out of that tiny hole were Nature's way of training the butterfly and
of strengthening its wings.
Sometimes, a little extra effort is precisely what prepares us for the next
obstacle to be faced. Anyone who refuses to make that effort, or gets the wrong sort of
help, is left unprepared to fight the next battle and never manages to fly off to their
destiny.