Once, there were two neighbors living in a village. One of them was a teacher who was calm and composed in nature, and another was an insurance agent interested in science and technology. Both of them planted different plants in the garden during rainy season. The teacher poured not much of water to his plants and didn’t always pay full attention to them, while the other gave a lot of water and manure to his plants and looked after them well, paying more attention to them.
The teacher’s plants were simple but looked good. The insurance agent’s plants were fuller and greener. One day, during the night, there was a heavy rainfall and minor storm.
Next morning, both the neighbors came out to watch the condition of their plants in the garden. The insurance agent found his plants uprooted. But, nothing happened to the plants of the teacher and they stood straight and stable.
The insurance agent was surprised and asked his neighbor “we both grew the same type of plants at the same time here together. I actually took greater care of them giving more water than you did for yours. But, my plants got uprooted while yours didn’t. Will you please tell me how it is possible?
The teacher simply smiled and said, “True. You gave your plants more attention and more water than required. That was your mistake! As a result, there was no need for them to work on their own. You made life easy for them without any self-effort. But, I gave them just an adequate amount of water and let the roots search for more water from the soil on their own naturally, and consequently, their roots went deeper which helped them stand firm and stronger. That’s the reason why my plants survived the storm”. The insurance agent realized his mistake of over-attention and over-anxiety towards the plants.
We must always adopt a "middle path" in all our activities which can produce a fruitful result in course of time. Extremities are not good at all to lead a meaningful life. It is said, ati sarvatra varjayet. We must balance our life well with a balanced state of body and mind.
If we get everything in life easily without any self-effort from our side, we do not understand the importance of hard work and happiness connected to it. Moreover, we won’t learn to work on our own and value what we have. If we learn and earn things easily and effortlessly, they simply leave us sooner or later. If we deal with the persons and things in a balanced way, good results will automatically follow us, and we can lead a happy and fruitful life.