Two students lived and studied with their teacher.
Of them, the younger student had more merits and received praise and honor everywhere he went.
The older student was poor in his study and jealous of the young one’s success.
One day, the older student shared his grievance with his teacher — “Sir, I am with you for many years now. I try to do every assignment and obey you without hesitation on anything. But you have given me less education than the new student. Why?”
Guru listened to him calmly and said — “First, let me tell you a story.”
The student agreed.
The teacher begins —
“On a sunny day, a man walked through the forest. He was dying of thirst, but he didn’t have any water. He searched for a while and finally found a well.”
“There was also a bucket, but it was without a rope. The well was deep enough, and there wasn’t another way to pull up water. Out of luck, he wandered a while, and walked away.”
His thought was — “There could be another well ahead.”
“Another thirsty man passed by the same place and saw the well. Without a rope, he too couldn’t pull water out of the well. “
“But instead of walking away, he grabbed some thatching grass, weaved a rope from it, pulled up water, and quenched his thirst.”
“Now tell me,” the teacher asks — “Which man was more thirsty?”
“The second one” — he replied promptly.
The teacher smiled — “Considering his hard work, we can say the second person was more thirsty.
“Similarly, your classmate is more thirsty for knowledge. And to gain it, he works much harder than you ever do.”
“Instead, you waste most of your energy imagining, and becoming like him.”
“His success is the return of his hard work, not only of my education.”
The student got his answer.
To imagine success is not hard work.
The Newton’s law, if you push anything hard enough, it will push you back equally and the opposite. Well, even success does.
