I remember an inspirational story which I read long back. Somebody was given 2 packets, with something in each and was instructed to open first at a time, when he needed help in life and the second one, again when he feels that he needs help and guidance.

After some time that person faced very odd situations, he was very much worried, he was always thinking how he would come out of such grave situations. He remembered about those two packets. So he opened the first packet.

After opening the packet he found that there was just a folded paper inside, with a message written on it, which read- ‘This too will pass’. This message gave him inspiration and courage, he made much more efforts to overcome the grave situations and could soon recover to normal conditions.

With passage of time that person achieved fresh successes, his business grew quite well, he became quite rich and developed arrogance also, his behavior with people also became rude. One day when he was just rearranging his belongings, he found that another packet lying there. With no expectation at all from it, he just opened the packet, with quite indifference. To his surprise it also contained the same message in it- ‘This too will pass’.

Suddenly he realized that the arrogance which he was showing towards his friends and those working with him was not at all justifiable. He changed his behavior suddenly realizing that the ‘time can change any time’, one must remain humble and have friendly relations with all.

This simple one line message carried different meaning in different situations and tells us that whatever success or fame we earn, can’t be a achieved by us alone, other people and our luck also play a great role in it. So one should always remain humble and behave well with others.

I remember a famous story ‘Poos Ki Raat’ by Munshi Prem Chand Ji, in which a farmer and his son guard their fields in cold nights as stray animals could eat out their crops. So during very cold nights of the month of ‘Paush’ (Poos) they guard the fields one by one, until they had hope that they could save their crops. In the end when they finally felt that they can’t save their crops from the stray animals, they threw the fields open for them and went to sleep!

So it is necessary that we should have our hopes alive. Once we lose hope, we lose everything. In the above story Prem Chand Ji writes-‘Hope is the mother of zest’. As long as we have hope, we keep playing our part with determination, expecting that we would achieve the desired results. Once hope is lost, everything is lost.

Thus the phrase- ‘This too will pass’ while it gives us hope in adverse situations, it also teaches to be humble and cool headed, when we achieve an enviable position, when we become very successful and tend to become arrogant.

So I feel it is not an escape route but teaches us to remain vigilant, devoted and hopeful in adverse situations and also to remain cool and humble when we become rich and achieve great success and high position.

This is my humble submission under #IndiSpire for the prompt #ThisTooWillPass .

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