One sunny afternoon, I was in the beach watching two kids play. Their parents were lying a few metres away in their bikinis enjoying a read from a book. From the cover, it looked like one of the popular Dan Brown books.
Both kids had put their drawing books and crayons aside and were completely engrossed in building castles with sand.They were in a competing mood, each was aiming at building the tallest castle. Somehow, I got fascinated by what they were doing because I know it is difficult to build anything with wet sand. I could see their determination and effort. As the walls were 3 inches from the ground level, sea water was pushed by the waves and carried with it the magnificent castles. The frustration from the kid’s faces was clear, they looked at their parents contemplating to cry, looked back at the empty space where their half built castles stood, comforted themselves and embarked again on the impossible mission.
The second run of reconstructing castles was not as bad as the first one. The castles were almost five inches tall when sea water was pushed again by waves and swept their castles. This was really debilitating. The boys did not lose hope, castles were swept away for the third time before something interesting happened.
One of the boys built a wall of sand to act as a barrier to sea water from reaching his castle. After putting up a very thick, five inch wall of sand, he started to build another castle. However, within no time, sea water was pushed again by the waves, it swept the wall together with the castle. I saw his face turn blue with anger and frustration. His eyes swelled with tears, but he still gathered some sand to start all over again.
The other boy decided it was enough with castle building, he opted to make a paper boat. He plucked a piece of paper from his drawing book, made a decent looking paper boat and placed it on the little sea water pushed to the beach by waves. His face beamed with joy and delight on seeing his boat float in the water. He was just yelling with joy and happiness. You could see satisfaction and contentment on achieving that goal..
He looked at his brother and saw the kind of frustration he was encountering. He yelled at him, do not try to control waves, instead of building weak walls of sand to block waves, use the waves to give you joy, happiness and delight.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
man! u said it,let it be!
You are welcome Peter
Thanks for this…interesting and inspiring also. God bless you!
Welcome Faith. God bless you too