As this is a very demanding time for many, I would love to share the following parable “This too shall pass” that came to me again very timely. The origin of this fable has interestingly been traced back to many different sources; many different nations and religions relate to it, which makes it even more interesting as it seems to carry a common learning experience with it.
This too shall pass
There was a king and he once said to the court sages, “I have a ring with one of the finest diamonds in the world and I want to hide a message under the stone that can be useful in a situation of extreme despair. I will give this ring to my heirs and I want it to serve faithfully. Think of what kind of message will be there. It must be very short to fit in the ring.”
The sages knew how to write treatises, but did not express themselves in one short sentence. They thought and thought, but did not come up with anything.
The king complained about the failure of his venture to a faithful old servant who raised him from infancy and was part of the family. And the old man said to him:
“I’m not a sage, I’m not educated, but I know such a message. For many years spent in the palace, I met a lot of people. And once I served a visiting mystic whom your father invited. And he gave me this message. I ask that you don’t read it now. Save it under the stone and open it only when there’s no way out at all.”
The king listened to the old servant.
The wisdom of the king
After some time, the enemies attacked the country and the king lost the war. He fled on his horse and his enemies pursued him. He was alone, his enemies were many. He rode to the end of the road. There was a huge deep cliff before him, if he fell there, it would be the end. He could not go back, as the enemies were approaching. He already heard the clatter of their horses’ hooves. He had no way out. He was in complete despair.
And then he remembered the ring. He opened it and found an inscription: “This too shall pass.”
After reading the message, he felt that everything was quiet. Apparently, the pursuers got lost and proceeded in the wrong direction. Horses were no longer heard.
The king was filled with gratitude to the servant and the unknown mystic. The words were powerful. He closed the ring and set out on the road. He gathered his army and returned his state.
On the day when he returned to the palace, they arranged a magnificent meeting, a feast for the whole world – the people loved their king. The king was happy and proud.
An old servant came up to him and said softly: “Even at this moment, look at the message again.”
The King said, “Now I am a winner, people are celebrating my return, I’m not in despair, not in a hopeless situation.”
“Listen to this old servant,” the servant answered. “The message works not only in moments when everything is bad but also in moments of victory.”
The king opened the ring and read:
“This too shall pass.”
And again he felt a silence fall over him, although he was in the midst of a noisy dancing crowd. His pride dissolved. He understood the message. He was a wise man.
And then the old man said to the king, “Do you remember everything that happened to you? Nothing and no feeling is permanent. As night changes day, so moments of joy and despair replace each other. Accept them as the nature of things, as part of life.”
Changing Paradigms
I am sharing this parable, because I believe there is so much in it to reflect about that goes beyond the obvious learning of acceptance of challenges and bliss, and the alternation between them that we feel so often.
- This too shall pass: the pain of feeling disappointed by reflecting own expectations
- This too shall pass: the long-term exhaustion directed to just one specific time and event in life
- This too shall pass: the loss of energy that is directed in just waiting for “better” times instead of enjoying the beauty and learning at any point in time and space
- This too shall pass: the dependence of our own bliss and happiness on the things that are connected to the doing of others
- This too shall pass: the feelings of regret, shame and guilt arising of things we did in the past and lead us away from our true self and our needs as a response to make up for what was received differently to our own intentions
- This too shall pass: using precious time to follow fads or to please others without this being a need of our true self and connected to what we see as the purpose in our life
- This too shall pass: not being able to enjoy the moment in the here and now because of being occupied by planning the future and processing the past
Being and staying true in the here and now
Looking at the situation of many of my clients, who find this time we are in at the moment, to be extremely challenging and demanding, not only because of the economic situation, but even more because the social distancing and lockdown of otherwise possible distractions, seems to give more space and also more momentum to personal growth, reflection and transformative redirection.
Many report that they feel confronted with themselves, their purpose, whereabouts, and reflections of their own needs in ways that they have never experienced before.
A key to this could lay in reflecting the above parable.
Surely most of us have been raised in a world and mindset that tends to ignore the times of bliss and joy and only recognize them, when they seem to be gone. And even then, more often, we look at those times rather with an eye full of regret than gratefulness. Compared to these blissful times, challenging times seem to receive way more attention at the very moment they occur.
It is as we have a natural draw towards what we receive as being demanding, challenging or negative. We can see this intensively in the way media and news work but even more in our daily life. We can also see this in the way we raise and educate children, where we give way more attention to things that did not go that well instead of the doing the opposite. And this seems to be an ongoing pattern in the world we have created for us.
But how would it be, if we would start unlearning this kind of mindset and train ourselves to be more grateful for the many little things that we see every day around us? How much more meaningful could every day feel, if we start consciously searching for those little blessings continuously rather than waiting for that big fat call of happiness?
Enjoy the little things
Love and joy are abundantly around us and if we look at them in smaller intervals of time the heaviness of challenging times weighs so much less.
This requires a trained eye for the beauty of life. It is a little bit like when we are – say looking for a special kind of new shoes-. Right then we will start noticing so many people that have exactly that very pair of shoes we are looking for, although before we had never noticed anyone wearing them. If we would set our sensitive eye on the small blessings and start bringing them to our consciousness, the following happens: we immediately feel more at ease in being able to deal with the natural alternation of times being more or less challenging. This is where the parable does not only teach balance but the love of life as it presents itself.
At Guide and Lead we always speak about self-leadership and exactly this is one important trait of successful self-leaders – being able to readjust our mindsets and paradigms. It is the mindset that removes the feeling of ambiguity by consciously deciding for the preferable or enjoyable way to look at it.
At times when so many speak of scarcity, of hatred, of competition, of problems and difficulties it is the greatest blessing of being able to still see and enjoy the bliss, joy, and love that is available around us in abundance. It is here where we find a source of energy that is available for everyone. A source that lies within and is even triggered further by our way to think, see the world, and enjoy it gratefully.
In our coaching and during our self-leadership training we explore many ways to get in touch with our needs, with the ability to receive challenges and blessings differently and with strategies that allow us to live life more meaningful and full of joy every single day.
Please contact us to learn more and feel invited to share in the comments with us where you enjoyed the little blessings today or which reflections the parable has triggered in you.
Yesterday when I discovered your post, I thought it is too easy to say to just look at the small blessings and this makes a difference. But honestly, after reading the post those things came to my consciousness just by themselves, and surprisingly after a day of small discoveries, I felt joyful and blessed in the evening.
I am leading a big school and I am busy all day long but by being also alone in my home office I had felt drained and tired from the times with only myself. There is only so much of Netflix, reading, and listening to music that you can do until you end up being just alone with yourself again.
Your post has definitely given me some substantial touchpoints, and discovering small blessings surprisingly really gave some perspective to the heaviness I felt the last weeks.
Thanks for that.
Hi Gavin, that is amazing to hear. Small things can make big differences indeed. It is a bit like nourishing your body constantly just by small little treats. This way you stay energized all day long. I hope you find enjoyment in that journey with yourself. Please feel free to share more of your findings with us. Also please feel welcomed to take part in one of our CPD training for principals where you will find even more useful touchpoints to dig deeper.
Amazing and useful. Thank you!
Thank you Ross, all the best for you!
Thank you. What a lovely way to start my day by reading this. I felt a warm shower of your love for your clients and readers pouring over me. I will definitely try to bring more of the small beautiful things to my consciousness as unfortunately I realized how much I have let myself be emerged into the realms of the negative bubble. Thank you for this much needed reminder.
Hey Tonya, I love your feedback. That really made my evening after a long day full of reflections and work. Thank you so much.
Hey there, such a powerful post full of wisdom and positive energy.
For me it brought a lot of realizations about my very self, too.
Thank you for that. I would love to read more of this kind of content as your approach seems to be truly unique.
Hello Tom, thank you for your feedback. I also loved the parable. It offers a lot of starting points for reflection. And even more to just release things, plans and be open to going with the flow, which ultimately offers a new quality of freedom and inner peace. I wish you great learning from those realizations!
This too shall pass -speaks to me at so many different levels and I like the way you approached the learning from it. It is so true, we are so much more open to see and recognize the hard times in our lives, and easily reach a point where we start seeing everything and everyone through very negatively tinted spectacles.
I appreciate your push towards joyful living and as I have had the pleasure of witnessing you in 2 workshops and a keynote I feel that this comes very authentically as your positive spirits and loving compassionate way of connecting with participants and listeners felt infectious. Thank you. Looking forward to more of this.
Dear Bhavi, thank you so much. I am happy that you found this post useful and of course, I am really touched by your lovely feedback to my work. For all of us at Guide and Lead true connection as the people, we authentically are, makes the very core to our work. We believe that through this connection only, we are enabled to reach our audience and clients, and so the love and passion we have in our work reflect back to us. We are also looking forward to welcoming you again in any of our upcoming training, workshops, or conference keynotes. Please find the current catalogue in our training section here.
Sharing the enjoyment of the little things?
Here you go: I love the pictures you used in your post and everywhere in your website. This is real art work. After reading your thoughtful post I stayed much longer just to enjoy the beautiful atmospheric images that reflect so much about your passion and understanding in what you write.
That was not a small joy for me today but indeed a big one. Keep it coming!
Wow, Martin, what a beautiful kind response. I am happy to hear that you enjoy the pictures. I love taking photos everywhere and feel that they can carry messages so nicely beyond my poor wording. Seeing the beauty through a lens is also a way of making wonderful moments and memories last longer and sometimes when I go through the pictures I feel nature still has things to tell me that I might not have seen or understood at the times I took the photos.
Thank you very much for your post my dear,it came just in a write moment. It feels like you put a medicine on my recent wound and reading your chapter feels less and less painful. I.like to read more of your work. Thank you very much
Be blessed. Roza
Dear lovely Roza, this is what happens sometimes that we read something that resonates in us in this way. I am very happy that you have felt this way with this post. And hopefully you will feel the same way with other contents here with us. Of course, we always have very different topics along with our work, but a lot of things, like this post, also come from coaching work. It is very important for us to get things moving with our work, but also with our posts, to touch people in a positive way and to make the world a little bit more wonderful for the people around us. I am therefore very happy that we seem to have succeeded in doing this with you. Thank you very much for your feedback, it felt quite good to read your lines. Take good care of yourself and let us know if there is anything we can do to support you.
So so beautiful. This truly made my day. Yes these are demanding times and it feels like only these tough times stay long whereas the other times pass so quickly.
I am myself at the moment in the situation of finding myself again and in deep reflection about how I can continue my way of live by staying true to myself.
It is so awesome that this post seems to speak directly to me at this very time. Thank you so much!
Dear Lydia, thank you so much for your kind feedback. I wish you all the strength and love for yourself to make the decisions that are just right and true to yourself. It is such important learning that when we start doing things for others that are not aligned to our true selves in the end everyone will lose out. Please keep sharing about your journey, we love to hear more from you!