Lessons from the Butterfly

A young boy was sitting in the meadows one fine day, lying around feeling helpless and small. For a young boy like him, he felt insignificant and unimportant. The elders were always given priority and respect. In a way, he felt worthless.

Suddenly, a beautiful white butterfly fluttered by, and after some zigzagging maneuvers, it finally rested on the outstretched palm of the young boy. The boy took a long look at the butterfly, and suddenly an idea hit him. He was going to use the butterfly to show how intelligent and important he is. He was going to prove the villagers wrong. The boy smiled.

He used his other free hand to cup the butterfly in. After securely trapping the butterfly in his cage of fingers, the boy stood up and made his way to the house of the village’s wisest person, an old man with white beard that reached his knees.

I will ask the man to solve my riddle, he thought. I will ask him to guess if the butterfly in my hands is dead or alive. If he says it is alive, I shall put my hands together and crush the butterfly thus proving him wrong in an instant.

But if he says the butterfly is dead, I shall open the palms of my hands and let the butterfly fly free. Then he too would be wrong, he smiled with satisfaction at the brilliance of his plan. There was no way both one of the answers are right, and they will be convinced of his intelligence.

The boy finally reached the wise man’s house. The old man was outside, as if waiting for his arrival. And the villagers, curious to see the encounter between the two have begun to gather in a small crowd outside the man’s house.

Eager to prove himself, the boy asked the old man to guess the question he had earlier rehearsed. The old man was quiet for a few moments. The villagers have begun to whisper in doubt and that made the boy smile even more at the thought of his future victory.

“But my son,” the old man said suddenly, standing up to grasp the caved hands of the boy.

“The answer lies within your hands,” he said, looking deeply into the boy’s eyes, offering the boy a gentle and sincere smile, as he softly caressed his caved hands.

The boy was startled. The villagers’ have fallen silent too.

In my hands, he thought. It lies in my hands.

And he raised his arms high above his head, and put his hands apart, releasing the white butterfly, that fluttered away freely into the open skies of blue.