My 7 year old daughter told me a story recently. She is really good in making up stories and comes up with something new very often. Now this one was about a turtle which couldn’t swim. The story goes like this…..

Once, there lived a turtle on a rock near to the pond. He used to cry everyday looking at the water. One day, a crow saw him crying and asked the reason. He said that he is a turtle but cannot swim. This makes him sad and that is why he is crying. Then the crow said, “I can only teach you fly, sorry.” After saying that the crow flew away.

After a few days, one of the fishes in the pond saw him crying. Fish asked him about the reason for being so sad. He said, “I’m a turtle but I cannot swim.” Fish said, “You cannot swim because you are not trying enough. You just sit on the rock and cry all day. That is not going to make you swim. You need to try harder.” Listening to that, he became sadder and started to cry louder.

Then, one day, he saw a happy tortoise walking slowly near the pond nibbling flowers and leaves. At that moment, he realised that he couldn’t swim because he was not a turtle, he was a tortoise!

The story is short and simple. But, it has a huge lesson to give us. It’s about self awareness. We will be crying all our lives thinking about all the things that we cannot do or we don’t have if we don’t know exactly who we are just like that tortoise who thought it was a turtle. With self awareness, we learn our own strengths and weaknesses which in turn helps in our own development.

This story, also teaches us that unless we help ourselves no-one can help us in understanding the real us. Our family, friends, neighbours and colleagues can only give their own views and perceptions about us which may not be true. The act of gaining self awareness may take time and energy as you will have to go through a lot of reflection and introspection but it is worth it for all good reasons.

I don’t know how a 7 year old can come up with something like this, but, she surprises me everyday. And I’m, just a proud mom.

-JMJ