By avoiding any situation one cannot face the challenges of life

Once upon a time, there was a tortoise who lived on a ship. One day the ship sank. After swimming for a long time, the tortoise reached a deserted land surrounded by water on all three sides. The landward side led up to a big, steep, craggy mountain.

The tortoise was tired from the long swimming, looked. For food, but there was nothing in that land for the tortoise to eat. To avoid starving to death, the tortoise decided to climb to the top of the mountain, hoping that on the other side of the mountain he would find something to eat.

As he got to the snow-covered summit of the mountain, he was freezing cold. Suddenly a snow storm started. He struggled hard and managed to make out a small pathway leading towards the other side of the mountain.snow

But the path was guarded by a big monster which were making lots of noise. The tortoise was terrified to death hearing the noises and wanted to hide his head inside his shell, but he controlled his fear and looked around him. He saw that many other animals were lying dead. The tortoise understood that those animals had died due to the unbearable cold. So the tortoise didn’t go into his shell for he understood that he too would die if he did not find a way to escape from that place.

He rallied his spirit and gathered courage to make his long journey towards the other side, which meant he had to cross the monsters.

As the tortoise started towards the monsters, the monsters changed their shapes. The tortoise came very close to the monster. Suddenly, the tortoise realized that it was actually a large pile of rocks and not monsters at all. The rocks were actually formed in the shape like monsters. As for the, the tortoise realized this was just the sound of the wind blowing through a small cave.

The tortoise felt confident and carried on with journey, and eventually descended into a beautiful valley. The valley was filled with woods, and plenty of food. The tortoise lived in that valley very happily, and became known to the others in the valley as the Brave Little Tortoise.

By avoiding any situation one cannot face the challenges of life. Something or the other will challenging us. It will create fear and insecurity in us. The only way to deal with the fear is to face it with all strength and faith. Most of the fears will be imaginary. Every problem has a solution. When our mind is clouded with fear we cannot act rationally and wisely.


This is the need of the hour. Let us face the Corono19 with all our might


Most of us are aware of the story on how once a troop of monkeys surrounded Swami Vivekananda making him unable to move. He managed to run and to his disbelief even the monkeys ran after him. He fastened the speed and so did the monkeys. He couldn’t find a way to escape and continued running. An old monk called out to him and said, “Face the brutes!” And what happened later is a well-known part of the story. Swami Vivekananda stopped running, turned back and faced the monkeys for which the monkeys fled away. And hence proving that the best way to get out of fear was to face the fear itself.

What if he had not turned to face the monkeys, let’s say he would run for kilometres and find those monkeys not behind him anymore. What would he feel? He would have thanked God for saving him, maybe discover a new way to get rid off monkeys for the next time or maybe even decide not to take the route again in his life.

But what he felt after facing the monkeys has added much more to his attitude than what he would have got if he had escaped. The sense of self-belief, the feeling of handling fear, a changed insight on how to handle problems better and much more. What he earned by facing the monkeys was much more than what he would have earned by escaping. The decision to face fear set the perfect end result for him. It sure is a very small incident, but not to forget the same small incident brought a major impact in his life.

We are offered with the similar kind of incidents in life where we let the moments of fear conquer us. At first it slowly comforts you and eventually it consumes you.

It’s absolutely ok to be afraid of something, it’s ok to let that emotion comfort you, but make sure not to get carried away by the same emotions. Decide to face it and that’s where you bring in the difference for your life. Courage isn’t the absence of fear, it is the way you handle the fear. It’s never easy to face your fears all at once. It takes time, it takes practice and not to miss, yes! it takes more fears, but once you face it you realise why it’s worth facing it. And every time you face it you realise how much more strength you have within.