I came across this folk tale while reading Nigerian Nobel Prize winner author Chinua Achebe’s novel The Anthills of Savannah. The story goes like this- In a forest, a fierce leopard hunted and killed every animal of his choice except for a tortoise who somehow managed to evade the predator. One day, the leopard came face-to-face with the tortoise on a lonely road. It was futile for the tortoise to run and sensing his imminent fate, he requested the leopard to give him some time to prepare his mind for the eventuality. The leopard saw no harm in it and granted the tortoise a few minutes. Instead of praying or crying, the tortoise went into the middle of the road and started scratching the dirt road with his hands and feet, throwing the mud here and there. The leopard was puzzled. “What are you doing? Why are you scratching the road?” “I am leaving behind marks of my struggle” said the tortoise. “But you never struggled” asked the befuddled leopard. “Only I know that. But I want all those passing this spot to think and say, ‘Yes, a fellow and his match struggled here.”
Fables and parables are, perhaps, the most ancient and effective ways of teaching important life lessons- both ethical and moral. The story in a simple yet forceful manner draws home the lesson that what counts is the struggle that one puts up in difficult life situations and not the outcome of the struggle. Of course, success does count but not as much as the struggle to succeed.
Not every story in life has a happy ending. Not every hero lives to enjoy the fruit of his success and still his story, somehow, reaches and inspires millions. Take the example of freedom fighters, who fought to release their nation from the shackles of foreign rule. Not all sustained to witness the D-day and yet we remember them through the stories of the struggle and fight they put up for their country
Struggle is also essential because it is during the bleakest hours that we stumble across a sliver of light that becomes the guiding force of our lives. Alex Elle, New York Times bestseller author says, “I’m thankful for my struggle because without it, I wouldn’t have stumbled across my strength.” Most of us, unfortunately, are unaware of the strength that lies buried deep within us. Our struggles, often, bring us én face with our core strength. Albert Camus wrote, “In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.”
Remember, life is a struggle right from the word go when a single sperm struggles and jostles with millions like him to make it work with the ovum in the womb. The entire birth process is a saga of tiresome struggle with an entire being developing inside a small uterus and surviving in a cramped space. Coming out of the mother’s womb is another struggle, the infant covered in blood and mucus, gasping for its first breath symbolizes struggle, yet the first cry of this nascent being not only brings relief and contentment to the mother’s heart but also tears of joy to her eyes.
When life is a ceaseless labour from the ‘blue bed to the brown’, then why fear struggle?
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