There was once a teacher who gave
his pupils some seeds so they could plant, and look after, their very own
sunflower. One boy in the class, who loved sunflower seeds, was so excited that
he planted the seed and looked after it with great care for many days.
When the first shoot finally
appeared, the boy, filled with impatience, went to see his teacher.
-"Can I uproot it yet?"
he asked, anxiously. The teacher
answered that he would still have to tend the plant for quite some time before
he would be able to collect many seeds from just one sunflower. The boy was
disappointed, but he kept on looking after his sunflower.
However, he grew increasingly
impatient, and did little else but pester his teacher about wanting to take out
the plant. Despite the teacher asking him to be patient, as soon as the boy saw
the sunflower's first seeds, he cut the plant so he could eat them. But the
plant was still green, the seeds were not ripe, and of course they couldn't be
eaten.
The boy was devastated: He had
put so much effort into caring for the sunflower, but in the end he had
squandered it all for a simple lack of patience. And he was even angrier when
he saw how enormous his classmates' sunflowers grew. Ultimately, he resolved
not to be so impatient in the future, and to listen to his teacher.
Fortunately, he wasn't completely out of luck, and his friends were good enough
to share their delicious sunflower seeds with him.
Moral : When patience is necessary, impatience can
drive us to make bad decisions.
