Why you don’t when you can?

The bus stopped with a screeching sound. The conductor shouted “Araku”. A man, engrossed in his own thoughts, suddenly stood up and rushed to the door. The conductor looked at him and opened the door, the man got down. The conductor shouted again, “rite, rite”, signaling the driver to drive and slammed the door as the bus started to move. The bus left, filling the air with dust from the road. The man looked around, coughing to clear the dust he just breathed. As he started to walk, it started to drizzle. He ran to a small hut that’s amid the green rice fields that filled the place. As he was entering the hut with a stoop, he heard a voice.

“Come inside son”, said an old man. The young man looked at him and smiled.

“Sit here”, said the old man showing him a wooden stool.

“Thank you”, replied the young man.

“I have never seen you here, where are you from? are you from the city?”, asked the old man.

“Yes, I came here to spend few days in these green fields, to relax”, answered the young man.

“What’s your name son?”, the old man inquired.

“Ram”, came the reply.

“Who are you? what do you do here?”, asked Ram.

“I am a retired teacher, I came here to live my last days in peace. I grow vegetables on a small land I have here”, said the old man. The old man then paused for a moment and asked, “I see many people coming here to relax. Each of them has a reason. What’s your reason?”

“Nothing, just to relax”, answered Ram.

“Its okay if you don’t want to share, do you want to have some tea?” offered the old man.

“I love to, thanks for asking”, replied Ram.

As the old man stood up to make tea, Ram said, “I am a little frustrated with my life, so want to spend some time with myself, to understand what’s wrong”

The old man remained silent. The rain started to pour down heavily. The old man served a cup of tea to Ram and sat beside him.

“The rain on the green fields, smell of the soil, cool breeze and the hot tea is so relaxing”, said Ram, sipping his tea.

“That’s what nature can do to you. Anyways, Why are you frustrated with your life son? You seem young and you shouldn’t feel so”, asked the old man with a smile.

“I am not very sure but I think it’s because nothing is happening in my life. I know I have the potential to achieve big things, but nothing seems to be happening now. That’s seems to be frustrating me”, replied Ram with a hint of doubt.

“You said you were a teacher, you would have seen many people in your career. can you help me?”, asked Ram.

“Ram, Everyone has great potential within, there’s no doubt in that, but only few realize it to full extent. We all could achieve great things but only few succeed to do so. At some point in our life, we all believe that we are talented, which is true. We all ask ourselves,

“why could I not achieve great things when I have potential to do so?”

As time goes on, we either find an answer to this or settled down to live as if we never had potential to succeed”

“Yes, I did ask myself the same question. I believe I have potential to succeed. I don’t want to settle down by believing that I am not worthy. I want to find answers. So, why everyone with potential don’t find success in life?”, asked Ram.

“I can answer that. let’s meet tomorrow morning. You need to do me a favor before I answer that”, said the old man.

“Sure”, replied Ram and left the old man’s hut once the rain abated. Next day, in the morning Ram met the old man. The old man took him to the land that’s plowed and kept ready for sowing.

He said, “This is the land I own, about an acre. I usually cultivate two different vegetables on this land, half an acre for each variety. Hold these two bags, they contain seeds. Please help me sow them”

“Sure”, said ram.

The old man showed the boundary of the half acre that Ram should use and asked him to sow the seeds from the first bag. The old man took the second bag and sowed them in the other half. By afternoon, they finished sowing.

Ram asked, “You said you will answer my question about why only few succeed even when all of us has potential to do so”

“I did. You will find the answer when you reap this land after a few months”, said the old man.

Ram, though curious to find an answer, preferred to wait and see how his work on the field will answer his question. He left for the city that evening only to come back again to find the answer.

After two months, on a sunny day, Ram met the old man in his hut. They both walked to the farm talking about how they spent the two months. After reaching the farm, Ram found something strange. The half acre that the old man sowed was all tomato but the half acre that he sowed had tomatoes, chilies, cabbage, pepper and many more. He also found that there are only two plants of each variety in the half acre he sowed. Two tomato plants, two chilies, two pepper, two cabbage and two plants of each other variety. Ram was confused and looked at the old man.

Ram asked, “Old man, sorry for my ignorance, how does this answer my question?”

“It does my son. You see, both these half acres have equal potential to give us equal returns. What matters the most is how we use it. The seeds I sowed were of the same variety. When I reap them I will be able to sell them in the market. But the half acre you sowed does not give you the same returns as mine. You have too many different things but in very small quantities. You din’t create enough of anything to sell in the market. Your land( potential ) was spent on too many small and discrete things at the same time, it effectively made it worthless”, said the old man.

“Now, I understood your wisdom old man. Though all of us has equal opportunity to succeed, many of us spend it on too many things that doesn’t add up to a bigger thing that counts. We are everywhere, doing everything. So, we go nowhere and achieve nothing. We divide our potential and distribute it to achieve small things that don’t really count. On the other hand, the very few who succeed and make it big in life, focus on few bigger things that add value and more importantly add up together to create a bigger success. They align their small successes towards their bigger goals. They stick to their game plan for a longer time to create considerable success, not too small to be discarded”

The old man just smiled and said, “You got it son”

Ram left for the city as a better person than he arrived.

What a simple and yet profound thought. Think about it. Answer this,

“How do you want to be successful?”

If you either have no answer or have too many different ways to be successful then you are most probably wasting your potential.

“Close you eyes and think about SUCCESS, what’s in your mind?”

Too many thoughts or no thought at all, either ways you are wasting your potential.

Give up on doing too many discrete things in life and focus on few definite things because,

“The best way to fail is to succeed in too many discrete small things

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